Clash of the Elements Part 4 EX Story 4: The Calamity Trigger
by mewmaster93
Summary: On the next leg of Alex and Shina's journey, they find themselves getting wrapped up in the time loops plaguing the BlazBlue world. Worse of all, the two have been separated from each other. With only 12 hours at their use with every loop and the likes of Terumi and Nu to deal with, can these two reunite AND help Ragna the Bloodedge break this cruel, endless cycle?
1. Chapter 1

" _Hello again, old friend."_

" _You appear to be in good spirits this time. You usually don't honor me with a 'hello'."_

" _Mmmm, well, I suppose even I can feel excitement every now and then. It's all a matter of wringing out every ounce of pleasure from what I do."_

" _So you have made your preparations for the next world?"_

" _Naturally. The artifact piece is planted in the embryonic chamber, and soon a relentless monster shall be born to break our little Phoenix."_

" _Of course, you do realize what will happen to the past of that world because of this, yes?"_

" _I have seen those events enough times. Besides, the world of the past has it's own savior, even if it's one so foolish as he…"_

" _I'd prefer you keep such comments to yourself in regards to him."_

" _I suppose I cannot expect you to change your views on him…It matters not, the stage has been set for that boy to break."_

" _Do try and go easy on Auris' daughter. It is already bad enough that we're going to need to use her later…"_

" _I cannot control what that doll will do to her. Not this time. It is better to keep to the shadows, lest that boy come for me earlier than before."_

" _Our plan is ruined if we don't stick to the finite details, yes."_

" _You have already chosen your path, dear friend. The road to sin is not paved with regrets when you travel down it for as long as we have."_

" _I cannot bring myself to disagree. Then let us see how this unfolds…though I suppose from my perspective, I shall only see the very last loop once this begins."_

" _I shall fill you in on the details when I've had my fun. I shall see you later."_

 **CLASH OF THE ELEMENTS PART 4 EX STORY 4:**

 **THE CALAMITY TRIGGER**

 **Chapter 1: An Illusion of Continuity**

In the deep recesses of space, an orb of air flies vigorously through the starry systems. It is guided by a teenage boy by the name of Alex Whiter, who is able to manipulate the seven basic elements thanks to inheriting the title of the Elemental Overlord. Joined with him is a girl just a couple years older than he is. Her name is Shina Aurora, a bubbly sweetheart who can control the energy known as aura. Their journey has carried them across the universe in search of the artifact pieces that will lead them to the Cosmos Drive, which is necessary to save Shina's people from the tyrannical Gravitus.

They have overcome many grueling trials just to obtain three out of the five pieces. As they sparred in the protection of that little sphere, they were blind to just how difficult their journey would soon become…

"Clang!" "Shink!" "Clang clang!" The clashing of cold steel was all that echoed within their secluded space. Shina, even with sweat building up across her silky smooth skin, rapidly thrust her rapier towards Alex, who parried the attacks with precise swings of his amber, fanged scimitar. Though the two were putting their all into fighting, Shina had a smile across the width of her face and a focus more unbreakable than diamond.

Alex firmly arched his brows and observed the swings of her blade. She was trying her damnedest to encroach upon the perimeter of his body, but he was giving no quarter in the way he swung his sword around. Shina cheerfully boasted "I'm gonna getcha eventually!" while making a swift swipe at his forehead.

The blade's miniscule tip could cut with the precision of a scalpel, and Alex pulled his head back to avoid suffering that unnecessary wound. He then gruffly exclaimed "Focus!" and punched his left fist out, sending a bullet of air out at Shina's gut. She lifted her arm up and blocked the air with a shield of blue aura, though not without her body sliding back a few inches.

Her brows perked up without a budge of her lips, keeping her smile in perfect form as she made a swift brush of her rapier downward right as Alex was pushing his head forward. He widened his eyes and brought the broad edge of his blade up to block the attack, but was unable to stop the tip of the rapier from nicking a few strands of brown hair right off the front of his forehead.

When sparks flew from the clash of blades, those hairs flew asunder and Alex swung his sword out, remarking in a blunt tone "Alright, that's enough for this session!" He dispelled the blade with a burst of fire and folded his arms against the chest of his ruffled red t-shirt. Shina's rapier also dispelled in a flash of light, and she folded her arms behind her back to put them between her knee-length platinum blond hair and blue shirt with beige pants ensemble.

Alex let out a dry cough, giving his lips a light tap with his gloved right fist before he remarked "Well, guess I was the one who wasn't focusing. Y-You got lucky." The humility for compliments was something he sadly lacked. Shina flashed her pearly whites in a grin and giggled "Or maaaaaybe I'm just improving after all!"

The boy, looking at her impressive chest before glancing at her face, said in a reprimanding tone "Don't go getting an ego bigger than your chest now." He whipped a pointer finger out and told her in a more arrogant manner "Besides, you only got a few hairs. At best you'll be able to give someone a good haircut now."

Poking the side of her lips while staring at him slyly, she asked "Then why'd ya stop?" Alex closed his eyes and replied "Cause it's time to check how close we are to the next planet. It's been around four months, we should be close by now."

"Ooooh alright…" Shina giggled as she reached for her right pocket and tapped the shrunken artifact inside. As a trail of aura stretched out past him and exited the sphere, Alex thought to himself _"…She picked up on my lessons quicker than I was expecting. Guess it makes sense…She's always prided her memories, so she's developed incredible recognition skills because of it. All she needed was the confidence to apply it to fighting."_

"… _Still, I worry about her getting an inflated ego. Last thing I need is for her personality to go in the completely opposite direction of what it was before."_ He glanced over his shoulder and saw Shina pointing ahead. He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he had accidentally drowned out what she said, leading to Shina asking "Did you hear me Alex? The aura's pointing to that planet!"

"Huh?" He raised his brows and looked back ahead to find that the trail did indeed end on a planet. To his disgruntlement, it was yet another Earth. Alex tapped his fingers impatiently on his elbows and with a scowl creeping up the right side of his face he moaned "Three Earths in a row…Why can't these pieces land on Mars or something?"

"Alright! Time to put my training to the test!" Shina was pepped and raring to go, like a car whose engines had been warmed to race at breakneck speeds. Alex turned around and stamped his foot down to halt the sphere. He widened his eyes open into a fierce glare and said "Not until we review what we've done over the last few months."

Shina's jaw drooped down and she playfully went "Awwww, really?" She then flexed her right arm and started rubbing her bicep, telling him confidently "Look at these muscles. Aren't these the muscles of a girl who's ready?"

"O-Oh don't give me that crap! Your body hasn't changed an inch." Alex said with a flustered blush across his face. Shina giggled and brushed a hand out beside her hip while responding "I know, I'm just teasing ya."

She nodded her head and gave off a more attentive vibe with her posture before saying "Alright teach, whatcha got?" Alex laid his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans and remarked "What's the importance of waiting to change forms?"

"Ummm…" Shina laid her pointer finger and thumb at an acute angle against her lips while gathering her thoughts. She snapped those same fingers out a few seconds later and said "It's because when we change forms, our bodies are healed up, so if we can it's better to get in whatever damage in our weaker forms so we don't waste a perfectly good heal."

"Correct. But that was an easy one." Before Alex could get to the next question though, Shina raised her hand and he caught it out of the corner of his eye, prompting him to inquire "What is it?"

"We've been so busy training I haven't really gotten the chance to ask…What's up with those colored triggers on your sword?"

Alex quickly replied "I use all seven of them to go into my Phoenix Form. Think of it as me triggering all seven forms of elemental energy in my body simultaneously." As he grazed a hand out past his elbow Shina asked "But couldn't you use them separately? Then you'd be able to heal yourself eight times."

"No point in focusing on one element when I can just power-up all seven at once with better results." Alex was snide in his response, as though that should've been an obvious answer. He then scoffed and remarked "You're getting off track. Now what have you determined about your Valkyrie Drive?"

Shina raised the bracelet on her right arm before her chest and took her answer seriously "In this form I can wield a blade that's able to interact with solid mass and aura at my choosing. The aura blade is non-lethal but can still cleave away a person's aura to the point of rendering them powerless. I can also pass on the power to cut away aura to other people for a period of two minutes, but I can't make their weapons also do non-physical damage to the body."

"Your normal abilities are also heightened. Ok, so you HAVE been paying attention." Alex managed to muster an ounce of visible pride in her progress through his smile, but quickly discarded it when she smiled and pronounced "I wasn't an 'A' student back home for nothing!"

"Hmph, teacher's pet…" He then grumbled rudely before telling her "Final question, and the most important one of all…What are you to never, EVER touch, ask about, or even consider thinking about?"

Shina paused and her chest heaved from a deep sigh. Letting it go, she murmured disappointingly "That stone in your pocket…" Alex turned his body and told her "Don't give me that, it's for the best if some things remain a secret."

"…I swear Alex, it's like you have enough secrets to write a novel." Shina smiled in a playful manner as the boy looked back. She honestly told him "Ya know I don't mean any harm wanting to know more about you."

Alex sighed and told her "Not that I don't trust YOU, but…" As he then thought about the being who had been following them and causing trouble, he slowly turned his head forward and a ton worth of distress weighed his body down. Shaking his head, he tried to discard the concerns plaguing him by laying his arms out beside his body and remarking in an overly confident tone "Besides, you learned something about me over the course of this."

He rubbed the bottom of his chin and hid a smile that could've easily escaped the sides of his face "I'm a DAMN good teacher. Ha-HA!" The laugh was just the icing on the pride cake he whipped up. He then slowly shifted towards holding his arms up to guide the sphere of air towards the planet. However, his concentration would swiftly become interrupted by the combination of a pair of soft mounds pressing against the back of his neck and the owner's arms crossing diagonally over his shoulders and before his chest.

"Thanks for putting up with me these last few months Alex. I know I was a bit of a butt, but you still trained me so…Thanks, I really appreciate it." In her rush to give such delicately spoken praise to the boy, she failed to realize how her expression was making him feel. The boy's muscles had tensed up, and blood gushed through his veins like a dam had burst. He shifted his gaze all-around and couldn't tell if the sweat on his skin was his own or simply remnants from Shina's body arms.

It was not him saying anything that got her to retreat, but rather her suddenly but slowly pulling her arms away and looking at the boy with a curious glance. He failed to notice her observation as he commented "W-We still need to work on you jumping me out of the blue like that…! Geez, nearly gave me a heart attack." He pounded his chest a couple times and then shook his head as Shina continued to look at him.

Her eyes barely had to look down to be even with the back of his head, and it was at that moment she found herself realizing he was now just a couple inches shorter than her. Her heart fluttered against her chest and she laid her hand against it before whispering to herself "When did he get this tall…?" She was left humming in thought about this peculiar feeling she felt upon recognizing that until the moment Alex managed to reach the planet's atmosphere.

To the shock of them both, they came down on a part of the planet that had been shrouded in a starry night sky. "Well that's a first." Alex dryly remarked before glancing back at Shina and asking "So do we actually have a trail to follow this time?"

She reached into the pocket the stone was in and summoned the aura trail again. This time it pointed eastward in a curve away from the sphere. Alex widened his eyes and said "Holy shit, I can't believe it. Doubt it'll be that easy, but at least we get some goddamn guidance this time."

He swerved the sphere to follow after the trail, occasionally looking down at the surface to see if he could determine where they were. Nothing about the way the planet looked screamed of familiarity to him, yet there was something he could sense that he didn't quite like. Rustling his nose into a crumpled grimace, Alex scowled a little and said "There's something in the air down there…something poisonous."

"Well, good thing we're up here then!" Shina said quite nonchalantly. Alex shook his head and commented "True but…That doesn't bode well for anything being alive around here."

"Hmm, well ya got a point…" Shina hadn't considered that and took on a slightly melancholic tone once she thought about it. However, soon enough her head perked up and she pointed past Alex's head towards something while proclaiming "But I think the human race is doing just fine on their own!"

In the distance was an impressive looking metropolis built up a massive mountain. The place housed hundreds of buildings across dozens of spread out tiers, some of which pierced even the cold, heavenly clouds. In the dark of night those buildings' bright lights sparkled very clearly, making it look like some sort of divine titan if you looked far enough away. There were railways stretching out for miles away from this city, and roads were attached away from the sides of some of the higher tiers thanks to some thick, curved steel tunnels. And it's not like the mountain was all there was to this city. Some buildings were around the edge of it, attached to smaller mountains or being on the surface of the planet itself. With such scope to take into consideration, it was easy to imagine a small continent's worth of people fitting in this one place alone.

Slowly continuing their flight towards the city, Alex blinked a couple times and then mentioned "Huh, the 13th Hierarchical City…Kagutsuchi. So that explains the 'poison' covering the planet. We've ended up in the BlazBlue world." He then sighed and moaned "Great. We REALLY needed to be wrapped up in another convoluted mess."

The roar of rockets shook the sphere the two were in, and they ended up focusing on an advanced looking, average-sized carrier jet that was flying straight for the city. Alex slowly clapped his hands together while remarking "We probably shouldn't try to draw attention to ourselves this time." He then dispelled the sphere and broke into flight along with Shina, who dropped and stumbled for a moment due to how suddenly the ground vanished.

She kept her hair from flapping about by laying a hand on the back of her head, then remarked in a curt manner "I don't think we can avoid that just by losing the air sphere." Alex blinked a couple times more then brushed his hand out and told her "O-Ok smart alec, then find us a scarcely populated spot in the city so we can land undetected. "

"O-K!" Shina closed her eyes and concentrated on the small auras belonging to the populace of the city. There were but specks from this distance, but there were a few visible gaps amongst the swarm that she could easily pick out. Lunging her pointer finger straight ahead, she exclaimed "There's a spot somewhere on the south end of the middle tier!"

"Left or right?"

"Left."

"Ok…" Alex wiggled his head left and right, cracking his stiff neck bones before flying towards the part of the city Shina pointed out. Kagutsuchi didn't look so intimidating the closer they got to it. In fact, it looked quite beautiful. It had been a very long time since either of them had seen a luminous metropolis, but it was mostly through the shows and games they experienced. To see one up close and personal caused Alex of all people to let out a quiet, child-like "Wooow…"

The two of them quickly dropped down into an alleyway on the west edge of this tier of the city, slipping past some slant slats on the rooftops and landing safely on the ground. A cat almost spooked them with a panicked meow before it scampered, but they quickly got their bearings back after. Alex brushed the sides of his shirt free of dust and then remarked reluctantly "Alright, now what?"

Shina shook the artifact beside her chest and remarked with an innocent grin "Heh…we've lost our trail." Alex clenched his arms so tightly against his chest he was almost giving himself a hug. "Grrr…I knew it was too damn easy. At least our searched is confined to this city."

He perked his head up and slowly observed the heights that Kagutsuchi reached towards. In a tone dripping with dread, he closed his eyes and mentioned "Yeeep…just got to search this entire goddamn city. No big deal AT ALL." Shina patted a hand on his right shoulder and with a thumbs-up remarked "We'll pull through! Lets just focus on figuring out the time period first."

Alex shook his head and was drawn towards objecting, but found that there was actually nothing objectionable about the idea. With a couple blinks he put his hands in his pockets and remarked "Yeah, that might actually give us a clue as to who or what has the artifact piece this time."

"Lets go then! I've always wanted to explore a big city." Shina was quick to break into a sprint, but Alex swung his hand out and grabbed the back of her shirt to reel her back in. "Not so fast there bucko. We're going to walk out there like NORMAL people, ok?" The boy raised a pointer finger up and waggled it like he was correcting a puppy.

Shina looked at Alex for a moment and shook her head, then quickly turned his grab against him by grabbing onto the wrist of the hand latched to her shirt and giving it a tug towards her. "Come on, it's totally normal for friends to be running together in the streets!" With that said she whisked the boy right out of the alley as he stumbled along against his will.

"H-Hey! SHINA!" Alex's stoic demeanor was replaced with a gasping fluster as he tired to get the girl to stop, but he soon found himself looking away from her as the sights of the town caught his interest. The streets were pretty condensed, sandwiched between buildings with an oriental architecture that stretched out for miles on end. Attached to the roofs were paper lanterns stringed between the buildings, and there were plenty of neon signs scattered about with Chinese characters on them. The town looked especially nice in the dead of night, like it was in a state of eternal celebration.

The city was filled with people of many nationalities. Not just Chinese, but Japanese, Africans, Europeans and Americans too. Most noticeably, some of these people also had animalistic features, like furry tails and pointed ears. It was definitely a stark contrast from the people of the Guilty Gear world, where everyone looked human. Thankfully, they also differentiated themselves from those people by having relatively normal looking clothes. At least that means the two of them wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb.

After a few seconds of running through the streets, Shina suddenly stopped and Alex kept going until he ran into her rear and recoiled a few steps back. As he rubbed his forehead and looked up he heard a grumbling sound coming from his companion. She slowly turned around and rubbed her belly with a giggle. "Hehe. Whoops, I should've been paying attention to my stomach sooner." She rubbed the back of her head and looked embarrassed as her stomach made a sound that was like someone gargling sewage.

Alex tapped his right toes on the ground while folding his arms against his chest. "You should've said something sooner. Whatever, I'll make you dinner." Shina shook her head a couple times and then with cheeks puffed was upfront in telling him "Ooooh I'm sick of your home-cooking! I'm a growing girl, I need some more variety or I'm going to wilt away to nothing!"

" _H-Hey, I work hard on those meals damn it. I don't need to be hearing this shit."_ He resigned himself from saying that out loud, instead insisting on sighing and asking her "Fine then. What do you want?"

Shina looked around for a little while, walking a ways into the crowd so she can get a better view of the signs. Pointing towards the corner of the left row of buildings that was near the edge of this tier, Shina remarked "Well…I've never had Thai food before." Alex raised his brows and remarked "Really? …Hmm, neither of I now that you mention it."

With a turn and a clap, Shina exclaimed "Great! Then lets go there!" Her enthusiasm deflated a little as she realized "Though…we don't have any money…" Alex waved a hand out and said assuredly "Forget about that, I'll work around that little issue with my powers."

"You're not going to dine-and-dash, are you?" Shina voiced in a concerned tone. Alex, in a quite offended manner, told her "The hell? No I'm not. Have a little faith in me won't you?" Shina slowly nodded her head and with a swipe of her hand out said "Oh I'm just joshing ya. Come on, lets go!"

She turned around and started to wade through the crowd towards the restaurant. Alex followed, but began whistling innocuously while putting his hands behind his back and wiggling his fingers up. From the pocket of a nearby citizen, a few bills slid out and flew right into his hand, and he quickly tucked them away in his pocket before he entered the restaurant.

The place was compact but homely. It had a few sleek mahogany tables and chairs and pillars with golden dragons wrapping around them. The lights were covered by square panels with a fancy oriental pattern, with paper lanterns added between them. The smell of spicy sauces and steamed shrimp in the kitchen whiffed past Alex's nose, and his mouth began producing saliva at an alarming wait. He had to swallow some of it before it flooded out.

A waitress wearing a nice Chinese dress greeted them with a tray at the waist and a gentle bow. "Welcome! Are you waiting for anyone else?" Shina laid her hands before her chest and with a respectful bow remarked "No, it's just the two of us."

"Then right this way. We have just the table for you." The waitress gestured her hand out towards a table right beside her, and Alex and Shina sat down across from each other. The waitress turned around and picked up a cold pitcher from the service station along with a pair of mosaic glasses for her tray. She offered the two a drink, but Shina requested a cup of tea instead of the complimentary water. Then the two were given their menus and they started to peruse it in a matter of seconds.

"Plenty of options to choose from…What are you looking at Alex?" Shina peered over the top of her menu with her curious gaze, finding that Alex was looking back at the pillar in the center of the room that held a bunch of advertisements and a couple wanted posters. With a flick of the fingers, one of the posters were ripped off and flown into Alex's hand. He looked at it and saw a prize of 90 billion being handed out for someone who could capture a person by the name of Ragna the Bloodedge. The picture drawn up of the person wasn't very flattering, as his face was goofily disfigured with horizontal slits for eyes and a chiseled square chin.

"…I think I have an idea what time period we're in now." He flipped the poster over the raised menu so Shina could get a look at it while he picked out the food he wanted. She picked it up and asked "Oh, Ragna the Bloodedge's wanted now huh? That might mean he's in Kagutsuchi this very moment."

Suddenly the restaurant went silent and a glass could be heard breaking in the distance. Alex looked around and found some of the once easy-going people freezing up in fright. He brushed his hand out towards them and commented "MIGHT, people…We know nothing about his location. Just get back to your meals, don't mind us."

When their weary eyes looked away, Alex chuckled for a couple seconds and then promptly glared at Shina over the top of his menu. With piercing, quiet anger he told you "Lets just expose ourselves right now, huh?!" Shina whispered in an apologetic tone "S-Sorry…I got ahead of myself there."

"Damn straight. Anyone with a decent grasp on technology can find out we don't originate here, and last thing I want is the fucking NOL on our ass." Alex had to be a little harsh in his reminder, and Shina quickly said "I said I was sorry, geez! So you're saying we should try and find him?"

"I don't think so. He won't know anything about the artifact. Though come to think of it, maybe…" Before he finished his sentence, the city was struck with a mighty tremor. Plates went crashing to the ground and some of the lanterns fell from the ceiling. A couple people fell off their chairs, including Shina. The tremor ended, but only for a moment. Then came a few aftershocks, followed by another large tremor. Alex grabbed the edge of the table as everyone else panicked and hid under them.

"What the actual hell is going on here?!" He exclaimed before getting off the table and swinging his hand down to help Shina to her feet. She rubbed her rear and remarked "I don't know, but this can't be good!"

"No shit, but we're not going to find out standing around here!" Alex swung his fist out and after a nod from Shina the two ran right out of the restaurant. The citizens were in an equal amount of panic as the signs were crashing down around them, crushing a few under their weight while other people fell into chasms that split open across the ground. It was like the apocalypse had begun for the world, but a quick look to the outskirts saw that only the main area of the city was suffering from these tremors.

Getting away from the collapsing, breaking buildings, Alex and Shina turned around and looked up towards the top of the city. With her body reeling back as she let out a gasp, Shina thrust her pointer finger and exclaimed "L-Look!" Alex was horrified to watch as a large, serpentine black maw smashed through the innards of the city and dug a massive fissure into the rocky mountainside before it was dragged right back in with a sky splitting roar.

The tremors continued to shake Kagutsuchi to it's core as Alex grimly thought _"The Black Beast…Damn it, we had to come during THIS period?!"_ As though things weren't bad enough as it is, Alex suddenly felt a surge of incredible power coming straight down from the sky. He dreaded to look up but found his head moving on it's own to look, watching as a massive white light was growing as it rapidly descended towards the city.

"SHINA! AURA! NOW!" His panic was something Shina was quite unused to and it threw her off-guard for just a moment until she looked up and saw the same light was mere seconds from hitting. She was uncertain that her aura would be enough, but she quickly slammed a hand against the ground and manifested the thickest dome of aura she could right as the beam of light came crashing down on the entire city. The tremors just grew worse as Alex found the power of the beam bringing him to his knees even through Shina's aura.

Shina's aura was cracking layer after layer even as she poured more into it, and the screams of the people were drowned out by their deaths or the roar of the beam itself. She slowly pushed herself towards holding her hand against the aura for more support, but the aura simply wasn't going to last. She looked to Alex and with dread building up inside her body as they both looked helpless, she slowly started to stretch her hand out towards him.

Alex looked at her, seeing her head shake back and forth with tears in her eyes. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed her hand with no intentions of backing down. "L-Like hell I'll die here! H-Hold on Shina, there's still something we can do…!" He began reaching into his other pocket, fighting against the immeasurable pressures of the beam with all his might. The aura was just seconds from shattering, and Shina's strength was draining to the point that her grip began to slip.

Alex, for a single moment, paused and turned to Shina right as he touched the stone in his pocket. She was frightened, vulnerable like a child, looking just as weak and human as he did that very moment.

The aura shattered apart, and the recoil from that flung Shina away from Alex's body. She was swallowed into the white light, unable to even give a farewell. Alex was alone, his body slowly being consumed by this beam. He couldn't believe what was happening. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them up, praying that he was just asleep. That this was a nightmare and not a cruel reality born from an even crueler fate. He shut and open his eyes what felt like many more times than it actually was, his groans of frustration growing louder and hoarser with every attempt.

With his hopes fleeting along with every fiber of his being, Alex's expression stretched out into a monstrous form as he let out a shrill scream of "GOD…DAMN IT!"

Then, just like that…The 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi was nothing. The cacophonous apocalypse ended in dead silence, with not even the hollow winds being kind enough to pass by and offer their condolences to the fallen. All that remained as proof this city existed was a bleached, smoldering hot crater that stretched out for hundreds of miles, and the memories of a particular person that floated high above the city as it sang it's swan song.

It was a young girl of elegant but mature demeanor who wore a gothic frilly black gown and jacket, complete with a red ribbon bow tie, upside-down blood red crosses on her skirt and shoulders, and a pair of black pony heel boots. Under the glow of pale moonlight, this girl held a lofty black umbrella over her right shoulder and let the wind gently brush her long blond pigtails that were tied in place by black ribbons. The girl freed a hand from the confines of her frilled cuffs and rested it under the bangs of hair beside her face.

"The little rat runs tirelessly through a maze, his miniscule mind thinking nothing more than to partake of the cheese that was promised to him at the end." The girl spoke in a droll manner, carrying a tired weight in her tone. "But he was not privy to the rules, and like his kin before him he ran amuck until he starved to death…Just another number to add to an ever growing pile of tragedies."

Gazing down upon the crater with glistening red eyes and a smile that gently bore her tiny fangs, the girl inquired to an audience that could not hear her "So then Mr. Overlord…How shall you fare in the maze? Is your fate of death destined to repeat itself over and over, or are you perhaps the exception to this cruelly crafted charade? I am looking quite forward to observing your actions here forth, little rat." And then, like the wind, she vanished silently from the view of the world.

 _Next Time: Standing Alone_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Ballet of Bullets**

In a lone, quiet forest far away from society, the canopy was filled with the chirps of little birds as they flutter out towards the clear sunny skies. When those chirps drew silent, they were replaced with the occasional, relaxed snore. Laying atop the smooth branches with a few dew trickling leaves above her was Shina, whose body was laid out with only her back slightly arched down. Her arms pressed against the sides of the chest while the hands laid atop the waist. With that little smile, she seemed to be having a pleasant dream.

"Zzzz…hehehe. I'm glad to see you too siiiis…"

A drop of dew plopped onto her nose, making her wince it with a wider smile. "No no…you don't need to tickle me, I'll get up…I'll get up." When a couple more dew drops fell upon her face, her eyes started to awaken, but not before she continued to drone on tiredly "Not there sis…that's so naug-"

The glistening lights between the leaves of the canopy was like an awakening slap to the face for her, and as she jerked her head up her forehead smacked into a thicker branch. "Owie!" She blurted meekly as she pulled her head back and rubbed the now reddish part of her skin. When finished, she opened her eyes and partook of what limited sights she had and wondered "Where am I?"

Only when brushing her arm beside her body did she recognize the feeling of wood against her skin and turned her head aside, letting out a surprised holler of "Whoa!" when she saw she was hundreds of feet off the ground. After feeling her heart race a little, she swung her legs to the right and vaulted herself off the branches to head downward, letting out a cheerful "Alley-oop!" as she did so.

She kicked through a few branches until she landed softly on the ground, where dried up leaves made a crunch beneath the soles of her shoes. Now in a more open space, Shina peered her head around and tried to make sense of her surroundings. "Think Shina…what were you doing last?" Slowly but surely, her eyes fixated on a sizeable gap between the tree trunks that allowed her to see the city of Kagutsuchi way out in the distance.

Pausing with eyes wide in shock, Shina's mind was breeched by the memories of her last experiences. Recalling the destruction of that city in excruciatingly painful detail, it was no surprise that she would hop back and hastily exclaim "Huh?! What?! How?!" Her heart raced faster than before, and she slowly raised her bent back right hand and placed two fingers just below the palm.

Gasping with no less fright than before "Ok…ok…I'm alive. This is definitely NOT heaven!" she started fervently patting down her body just to make sure she wasn't ethereal. Clapping her hands down atop the sides of her shoulders, she took in a few deep breaths to try and relax herself. _"Come on Shina. Focus, focus…There has to be a logical explanation for this hullabaloo!"_

Closing her eyes, she took the time to reflect on what she knew. _"BlazBlue world, Black Beast showed up…Kagutsuchi was destroyed, but now it's not…"_ With widened eyes of realization, Shina pulled her arms away and pounded a fist into her palm. "Of course! I was sent back in time!"

Thinking on that for a few seconds while fluttering her eyelashes, Shina then fondled her chin with a couple fingers and remarked "Oooor it could be a time loop. Hmm…" That was when she remembered something that, to her embarrassment, she should've realized sooner. "Oh wait! What happened to Alex?!" She spread her fingers before her face as she let out a gasp of shock, then immediately turned her body around while yelling his name out as loud as she could.

When there was no response, Shina folded her arms under her chest and murmured "This isn't good…We must've been separated during the destruction of Kagutsuchi." Tilting her head and letting out a bothered sigh, she remarked in a concerned tone "I hope he's alright."

Turning to look at Kagutsuchi, Shina tried to put on a more optimistic smile while saying "Oh who am I kidding. He's pretty tough, and he probably got time looped like I did. For all I know, he's already tearing up Kagutsuchi looking for me." What should've been a comforting thought turned into a grim realization as Shina recalled how Alex tended to behave at times. With a forced smile and chuckle, Shina closed her eyes and remarked "I-I probably should head to the city now…"

She kicked off the ground and flew out of the forest, going straight towards the city without any detours. The beauty of the nighttime lighting was lost, but at least she could appreciate how the city was structured. But as she looked at it, she cracked a short grin and remarked "Oh geez, I'm going to have to search this whole city for him, aren't I?"

Levitating far enough away from the city so she wouldn't be seen, Shina closed her eyes and saw the millions of auras belonging to the populace. Her head started hurting right away so she stopped after a few seconds. Keeping the image of a sea of blue blurs in her head as she rubbed the back of it, she remarked "Oh poo…his aura isn't distinct enough when he isn't fighting. How am I gonna pick him out from millions of people?"

"Mmm…" Folding her arms under the chest again, Shina remarked "Well…maybe I'm worrying too much about him. He can handle himself juuuuust fine." She then slipped a hand into her right pocket and touched the pieces of the artifact, causing a small aura trail to trickle out and extend just a few feet away from her body.

"The next artifact piece is somewhere in Kagutsuchi." Lingering on that thought for just a little bit, Shina then pumped her fists beside her body and stated with a mellow but determined expression "This is a chance to prove myself! I'll get the artifact piece all on my own, then I can show Alex that all his training paid off!"

With a firm nod of the head, Shina exclaimed "Right! You feel great! You can do it! You. Can. WIN!" Then she started to glide towards the city, but paused only a few seconds in with an awkward smile on her face. "Of course I umm…don't really know where to start looking."

Giving a light shrug, she remarked "Eh, I'll just go into the city and see what I can find. After all, you can't investigate without 'invest'ing!" She then flew straight towards the upper parts of the city, deciding to land herself in an alleyway close to the port. _"Wish there was a better way to land than this…"_ Shina thought as she brushed some gunk off the back of her right shoe onto the wall. Then she casually walked out, trying to blend herself in with the people there.

Taking in the sights, Shina found a few things in particular that caught her eye. One of them was a large clock made of gears and two fancy golden arrows not far out from the port itself. At the moment, the big hand was at '3', the small hand was at '2'. _"2:15...So I got about ten hours before everything loops again, don't I?"_

Walking to the edge of the port and laying her hands atop the arched railway, Shina let the breeze blow against her face as she looked out at the surface of world far below. The beauty of the world helped relax her mind for the time being, giving her better focus of what she needed to do. "Lets see, if we're talking time loops, then that means currently there's a few places I could go to for information. The best spot would be the NOL base stationed here, but…"

Turning around and leaning her body and head back as much as she could without tipping over, she focused on the structure at the very top of the city, which was barely visible past the layers of roofing over the dock. "It's too secure, and I'm not gonna just break in like I'm some rank-and-file gangster…" Standing upright and tapping her feet on the ground with a tense squint of the eyes, Shina's mind clicked on the light bulb inside, giving her a greater illumination of what she could potentially do. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and looked out towards the crowd, where she happened to notice a woman walking around wearing what appeared to be a sapphire military jacket with long sleeves and a skirted bottom. On their head was a blue balmoral cap, and they seemed to wear white pants with tall black military boots.

With a gasp, Shina whispered "Oh! An NOL Officer. I got it…if I disguise myself, I should be able to get into the building easy-peezy!" But then she thought on that a little and murmured "But…I'd have to commit to thievery if I went with this plan. Mmmm…" It was a hard moral quandary for Shina to have to process, especially as the NOL Officer went deeper into the crowd, potentially ruining the one chance she had of making her plan work.

Tensely gritting her teeth, Shina twiddled her hair between her fingers for a few seconds before instinct took over her body and sent her sprinting straight at the officer, her body brushing against parts of the crowd as she quickly worked up a good lie to scream out to them. "Excuse me, excuse me! Officer!" Her specific manner of blurting got the officer to turn around and remark in a dutiful tone "What's the matter miss?"

Shina paused before the Officer and turned towards the alleyway, pointing a few times over there and exclaiming "Someone's being assaulted over there! Hurry!" The officer's face tensed up and she went for a sword beside her hip, turning towards the alley and exclaiming "Thank you for the alert. I'll handle this!" They ran towards the alley with Shina following them closely. When the officer had gone in, they looked around and found nothing in sight.

"Huh? No one's getting assaulted here." They remarked in confusion. Shina hastily said from behind in a joking manner "N-Not yet anyways!" The officer turned around and saw Shina holding a large flyswatter of aura in her hands while she gave a forced smile and profusely apologized "I-I'm sorry! But I'm just trying my best not to focus on becoming a criminal here! …Don'thatemeforthis!"

Before the poor officer could strike back, Shina closed her eyes and swatted their face as hard as she could without breaking their bones. The officer fell back and was laid to rest atop a bed of aura unconscious. Shina slowly perked her eyelids open and then dispelled the swatter, glancing down at the officer and thinking _"A-At least she'll sleep peacefully…"_

Taking a few deep breaths, Shina gulps some saliva and then bends down to start taking the officer's uniform off. She went nice and slow, rolling the bottom of the shirt up and briefly focusing on their firm belly. _"Oooh, she must do so abdominals in her spare time…"_ With a couple blinks followed by a firm squint Shina shook her head and remarked "F-Focus Shina!"

Shina eventually got the shirt and cap off, leaving the officer with their undershirt and their long black hair flowing out onto the ground she now laid upon. Shina put the uniform on, struggling with the chest area of the shirt in particular. "Ngghh…don't know why you're giving me so much grief…!" She grunted, but eventually squeezed into the uniform just fine. Then she place the cap snugly on top of her head and glanced at the officer, whispering to them with an innocent grin "I promise I'll return to this you…if you're still here."

Shina turned her head and with an embarrassed sigh remarked "Oh who am I kidding, I've been a baaaad girl today…Might as well just roll with it for now." Looking out of the alley, she said "And here I was…concerned about ALEX causing trouble…Just remember what you're fighting for Shina." Then she walked out, whistling a military marching tune casually while putting her hands behind her back.

When she was far enough away from the alley, Shina curled her lips inward and thought _"Now where am I supposed to go…"_ With a pop of her lips she muttered "Well, I THINK there's a service of sorts for getting around town. Has to be, considering how huge this place is…"

Since she really had no experience with the layout of Kagutsuchi, Shina ended up spending the next hour going around parts of Kagutsuchi to get directions on where to go for traveling. Many people were confused by an 'NOL Officer' asking for directions, but she got their help all the same. Eventually, she ended up on one of the lower tiers, where she went up an escalator close to a railway that went through other parts of town.

There was a man stationed to the left in a small boxed-in room with clean see-through glass. He was leaning back in a chair and flipping through the pages of a magazine projected by a phone until Shina tapped on the marble counter in front of the glass. The man compressed his phone down to a miniature size before sitting upright and remarking "What can I do for ya miss?"

"I need a ride to the NOL HQ." Shina said politely. The man raised his brows and remarked "NOL eh? There'll be a ride coming in about fifteen minutes that should take you there. Since you're from the NOL, tell ya what, this ticket's free of charge." He pressed a button nearby and a slit opened up nearby, popping out a sleek metallic ticket that the man swiped up and placed onto the counter for Shina to take.

She took it out and placed it before her face, remarking in a puzzled manner "Are you sure? I can pay you back for this if you want…" The man shook his head and brushed a hand out. "Nonsense. Enjoy the ride." He smiled and then leaned back into his chair. Shina tucked the ticket into her pocket and then went to one of the benches, crossing her legs and patiently tapping the top of her calf like it was a set of piano keys.

" _Fifteen minutes…So it'll be a little after 4:00 when I get to the building. That'll be plenty of time to search for information."_ Shina took in a deep breath and tried to relax herself as the minutes went by. It didn't take long for this quiet resting space to be entered by another person. With a soft-spoken, feminine tone, someone hesitantly asked "E-Excuse me…? Are there going to be any rides to the NOL Kagutsuchi Branch?"

Shina let out of a curious hum and glanced to the right. There was another NOL personnel standing in front of the ticket booth. It was another female, this one wearing a sleeveless, hooded blue military coat that went down to just above their leather stocking covered knees. They also had a cap like Shina's but their boots were blue with black heels and a golden zipper on the front. The person's blonde hair was tucked into her cap, making it appear rather short and ruffled at the moment.

Shina's heart skipped a beat and her eyes widened like a child happening upon a newly opened candy store. _"Oh my gosh, could it be…?!"_ Shina held back her squeals by sucking her lips in, then she got onto her feet and slowly approached the person from behind as they kept talking to the ticket manager.

"Sure thing. You from another branch?" The man inquired. The girl nodded her head and admitted in an embarrassed manner "Y-Yes…It's my first time in Kagutsuchi." The man popped up another ticket from the slit and handed it out, telling her "Well you're in luck. There's another NOL officer going there too."

The girl took the ticket and remarked in surprise "…Really? Did their name happen to be Jin Kisaragi?" The man responded "The Hero of Ikaruga? Ha! If it was him I'd already be selling his autograph off online. No no no, it was another girl. In fact, you might as well turn around if you want to meet them."

"Huh?" The girl started to turn around but found the bottom of her face ramming into Shina's breasts, pushing her back a little. The girl let out a shrill surprise and then rubbed her nose, looking straight at her busty assailant with her bright green eyes. The girl was scanning Shina up and down as she backed up a little bit and apologized "Sorry, I didn't mean to get that close."

The girl's voice grew even meeker as she let out a blush and remarked "I-I should've been paying attention…I didn't know I'd be greeted by an officer. Especially one so…" The girl clearly fixated on Shina's breasts with a subtly envious gaze but instead finished with a remark of "Tall…"

The girl looked up and saw Shina's eyes glistening with sparkles while her hands were tightly clenched before her chest. With a weary glance, the girl hesitantly asked "Is…something the matter?" Shina let out a more vocal squeal and then tried to calmly ask "I…I'm not mistaken right? Are you…Noel Vermillion?"

"Yes…? H-Have we met before?" Noel would not get her answer as Shina turned around and pulled her head back, squealing as loud as she could in a tone of absolute glee. "Oh my GOD I can't believe I'm meeting THE Noel Vermillion IN PERSON! Aaaaah! Pinch my cheeks and tell me I'm dreaming, this can't POSSIBLY be true!"

"…Ummm…W-Wha…" Noel's jaw slowly dropped and her pupils shrunk, with her letting out a meek shriek as Shina looked over her shoulder with an unnecessarily massive smile. Shina's eyes threatened to overtake the rest of her face as she widened them more and whispered "It really is her…"

Shina spun around and quickly took her fingers to Noel's cheeks, pinching them gently as the girl blushed harder and let out another surprised gasp. "Ah! W-What are you d-d-doing?!" Shina's eyes still sparkled as she muttered in bliss "Your skin is so soft and smooth…Oh you're soooo cute! If I could I'd whisk you back home and treat you like my second little sister!"

"P-Please stop…" Noel meekly begged, and though Shina let go of her she continued to pester her vocally instead "YourfigureisperfectineverywayyourvoiceissoniceiloveyourthemeyourwayoffightingwithgunsiswhatIinspiredthewayIusemyGunslingerDriveI'vewrittenafewfanficswithyouinityourmyfavoriteheroineeverandItotallyshipyouwithRagnaeventhoughy-"

"I SAID STOP!" A brave shout forced itself through Noel's embarrassed face, and Shina immediately halted with the sparkles vanishing from her eyes. Slowly standing upright, Shina's expression turned guilty and embarrassed herself. Noel turned her body aside and appeared to be grabbing her arm underneath her cloak as she inquired "W-What have I done to deserve this much…attention?"

Shina looked down at her for a few seconds and then took a couple steps back before turning around, murmuring to herself while biting down on one of her fingers "Craaaap…you went WAY too far there Shina." She glanced over her shoulder and saw Noel sniffling and murmuring in confusion "I'm not worth praising…"

Knowing a bit of what it's like to have their self-esteem feel like crap, Shina thought to herself _"I need to apologize. Like…now"_ and then fully turned to gesture a hand out to Noel and tell her with the utmost honesty "I'm really sorry about that. I'm just really…studious when it comes to the NOL. So I just turn into a giant fan girl whenever I see a famous officer. I-I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable…honest."

"…But why? I'm just like every other Lieutenant out there." Noel said, her face squirming timidly. Shina giggled and remarked "Are you kidding? You were recorded with the highest synchronization rates with an Armagus ever. Don'tcha know how impressive that is?"

Noel perked her head up a little and asked "Huh…? You know about that?" Shina nodded her head, and Noel found herself smiling a little more than before. That brought a bit of relief to Shina's mind and she let out a sigh. Noel then remarked "Then you must've been in the Academy…I'm sorry, I honestly thought you were older than that."

"Huh? Why?" Shina was blissfully aware of the two reasons why Noel would assume such a thing, and the girl stuttered in an embarrassed tone "U-Uhh…never mind. I…still don't get why you'd be such a big fan of mine…but thank you."

"Since you're here though, can I ask for your identification?" Noel then inquired. Shina flinched a little bit and thought _"Ah CRAP! I didn't think she'd ask for that. Can't just give my name. Lemme think uhhh…"_ Shina kept a straight face on as she told Noel "I'm First Lieutenant Luna Lovegood of the Kagutsuchi Branch."

"You have a nice name. Ummm…H-How long have you been working out here?" Noel meekly inquired. Shina put her hands behind her head and replied "Been about two years I'd say. I graduated from the academy early."

"Wow…" Noel's awe was quiet, with maybe a tint of jealousy in her voice. Shina smiled a bit and said "I kinda miss those days of being in school though."

"Y-Yeah, same here." Noel gave a generic response just to show she was listening. Her eyes were clearly still looking up and down Shina's body at the moment, leading her to ask with a lot of insecure hesitation "U-Uhhh…d-doesn't that outfit feel tight?"

Shina blinked a couple times then tugged on the front of the outfit, barely making it move. "It could been looser, but I'm not gonna complain." Noel mumbled something about "Why would you…" before saying "You could just request a…b-bigger outfit."

"I just took what I could from the first officer I could find." Shina giggled a little, and Noel smiled and said "Well I guess if that's…" However, she paused for a moment and her face looked a little confused. "I-I'm sorry…w-what did you say?"

Shina blinked a couple times and curled her lips back, giving them a smack and saying in a cutesy manner "What DID I say?" Noel repeated her earlier comment in a firm tone "You said you got your outfit off another officer."

"Uhhh, noooo…I said that I got it from the first…official NOL store I could find! Yeah, that's it!" Shina cracked a grin, but Noel bluntly blurted out "There's no NOL clothing lines!"

"Well there really should be. These clothes are pretty fancy schmancy, wouldn't you agree?" Shina clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and pointed her fingers at Noel, expecting a laugh from her as she gave a slow, dry one of her own.

However, Shina's remark did not humor the young Noel, who took her hand through the gap on the chest of her coat and grabbed onto it, throwing it right off against the window of the ticket booth behind her. Underneath her coat was a sapphire uniform dress with a white collar and a short red tie, with two separate long sleeves that have two heavy metal bands and a long red strap connected to each band. Swinging her white gloved hands out, Noel declared with a lot more energy and bravery than before "Summoning Bolverk!"

Two golden runic portals opened up beside her palms, and two long, silver handguns were pulled out of them and into Noel's grasp. She held the left gun up beside her face and pointed the other one right at Shina, who could only chuckle a little before she swung her hands up and exclaimed "H-Hold on a second! There's a very good reason for this, I swear! If you would just hear me out for a moment…"

Noel vigorously yelled out "Not gonna happen! I'm placing you under arrest for impersonation, theft, physical assault and harassment, and destroying a young maiden's self-esteem with your giant breasts!" Shina blinked a couple times and made mention of "Uhhh…I don't think you can charge someone for that last one." Noel arched her eyebrows and then pointed Bolverk downward, firing a warning shot at Shina's feet in the form of a blast of yellow energy.

Shina hopped back and with a grin on her face thought _"In hindsight, I really should've thought this plan through a little more."_ Noel made her stance clear to Shina by firmly telling her "If you won't come along quietly…then I'll have to use force." Shina stared at her and couldn't stop herself from smiling.

" _Oh I wish I could take you seriously right now Noel, but you still just look so darn cute even when you're badass….I-I probably shouldn't be thinking that now, should I…?"_ She glanced around slowly until the escalator caught her attention. With a few flexes of her fingers against her palm, Shina sighed and murmured "I'm really setting a bad example for sis, but…"

Without warning, Shina ran to the left and leapt towards the railing between the escalators while yelling "GERONIMO!" Once landing on the rail Shina began sliding down it while wobbling back and forth to keep her balance. Noel turned her body and stammered in shock "H-Hey! Get back here!" before somersaulting forward and landing on the railing herself in hot pursuit. Shina hopped to flip around and with her hair blowing out before her face she exclaimed "Can we PLEASE just talk this out? I'm not trying to cause trouble!"

Noel thrust her right Bolverk out and exclaimed "OPTIC BARREL!" while pulling the trigger. Shina looked back and saw a pair of handgun symbols crossed together. Knowing they signaled a burst of energy, Shina flipped over the attack as it went off and then landed on the rail. She then went for the crossed guns symbol on her bracelet and thought _"Well, guess I can't pass up this opportunity!"_ She tapped down on the stone and was covered in a flash of light.

She quickly broke out of it wearing a new set of clothes, which consisted of a midriff revealing sapphire riveted sleeveless shirt, silver thigh-high stockings, a white and green striped skirt, slender blue military boots, and a pair of holsters on her back with wires that connected to her pistols made of aura. With her now silver hair flowing in the breeze, Shina kicks back and lands on the ground at the end of the escalator.

The crowd that had gathered there backed off upon hearing the commotion going on, even though Noel was explicitly telling them "No no no! She's a criminal! Don't give her a chance to escape!" One of the people in the crowd yelled out "Yeah well we're not in the mood to get shot!"

"Gaaaah!" Noel let out a frustrated grunt before making a flipping leap off the railing and releasing a string of blasts point-blank from her guns while proclaiming "CHAIN REVOLVER!" Shina turned and hopped back while Noel plummeted to the ground. Her attacks missed her mark and she landed perfectly on the ground, where she pointed both Bolverks at Shina and remarked on her appearance while giving her a glare "I've never heard of an Ars Armagus like this before."

"Well that's because it's not one. Seriously if we just sat down for lunch or something-" Shina kept trying to plead to Noel's mercy, but the girl shook her head and declared "You should've thought of that before you became a criminal! So who are you working for? Sector Seven?"

"I'm not working for anyone, honest!" Shina blurted out, finding herself a bit flustered at the person she admired so much. Noel firmly told her "Not gonna be honest, huh? Guess I'll leave that up to the Intelligence Division. Now please, stop resisting and come quietly."

Even knowing that was likely the last warning Noel was going to give, Shina kept up an awkward grin as she told her "Is there nothing I can say to get you to listen?" Noel bluntly responded "You can just say nothing and come along."

"…I'm sorry, I know what I've done is wrong, but…" Shina put her pistols forward and finished with a firm expression "I can't go to jail. If that means fighting someone I look up to…It'll suck, but I have no other choice."

Noel didn't say another word to Shina as she pulled Bolverk's trigger and yelled out "OPTIC BARREL!" Another crossed symbol of guns appeared directly on Shina, and she slid to the left to get out of the way of the blast. She rapid-fired five shots from her pistols at Noel, but the girl simply vaulted over them and got in close to Shina as she stopped moving. Noel thrust her right Bolverk at Shina's head and she dodged it by swerving it away, followed by Noel placing the other Bolverk against the side of Shina's head and using both guns as a means of vaulting herself over her body.

Shina spun around and bent down, extending her leg so she sweep Noel off her feet the moment she lands. The girl let out a shrill gasp and fell down, briefly revealing she lacked any shorts to cover her white panties behind that skirt of hers. Shina blushed in embarrassment and quickly stood up while Noel rolled forward and quickly rising to her feet. Shina waved a pistol out and remarked casually "I really question the dress code of your organization."

Noel's face turned bright red and she exclaimed in a flustered tone "A-Are you a pervert too?!" Shina widened her eyes and stammer "Wh-wh-what? I'm just saying…" Noel crossed the Bolverks under her chin and sprinted straight at Shina while she was wasting time blabbering. Once at close range, Noel tried to hit Shina by twirling her left gun at her face, but she simply leaped high back to avoid it. However, that was not the end of Noel's attack, as she leaned back and fired a shot right towards Shina.

Shina crossed her arms against her chest and made a shield of aura to block the attack, then dropped to the ground and swung her arms out, pouring aura into the guns to charge their power. When the pistols had enough of a glow surrounding them, Shina swung both out and fired out a continuous stream of large bullets towards Noel.

Noel dropped to the ground and slid on her hip straight at Shina, swinging her right gun out and firing a shot at Shina's legs that packed enough force to trip her forward. With surprising speed, Noel got up and then spun around so she could make a short hop and kick her left foot right into Shina's gut while exclaiming "SPRING RAID!" The kick left a crescent mark in the air for a moment and winded Shina for a couple more as she was also launched up.

Shina spun a couple times and then pushed her body to land on the ground behind her, skidding a few inches back, giving a well-due compliment to Noel "Hey, not bad!" But her response was simply a frustrated growl from her opponent, who swung her Bolverks out and rapidly pulled the trigger while exclaiming in madness "OPTICBARRELOPTICBARRELOPTICBARREL!"

Shina ran to the right to avoid the blasts targeted at her while she also took shots at Noel. She managed to get her mark on the girl's left arm, causing her to wince and fumble the Bolverk out of her hand. Shina then slammed her pistols together and created a goofy looking megaphone from the aura. Pulling the trigger while making headphones for her ears, a few rings of pure, loud sound fired out and shook the area.

Noel grabbed Bolverk just in time to flip back, where the sound waves pounded the nearby wall and dislodged dust from it. The crowd that had still gathered around moaned for a bit about the noise, causing Shina to look around and profusely apologize "Sorry! Sorry!" Noel rushed Shina while she was distracted and fused her Bolverks into a shotgun, slamming it against Shina's gut and with the weapon in both hands she pulled the trigger and exclaimed "CHAMBER SHOT!"

Even with her full support the gun's large blast pushed Noel back while Shina was simultaneously launched through the wall of a nearby building. Noel split the Bolverks up and then squeaked when she looked at the hole in the wall. "Ah! Oh no!" She bit her lower lip and blushed, but would return to a serious expression when Shina vaulted out of the wall with little dirt on her body. Shina glanced back and lightly whistled, then patted a pistol against the side of her head and remarked at Noel "Whew, that really packed a punch!"

Noel grit her teeth and then made a high leap back, and as she placed both her guns out as far as her arms could stretch a glowing azure colored emblem with four wings and her Bolverks pointing out a fancy "V" shaped design appeared behind her. "BULLET STORM!" She yelled out while swinging her guns out and firing a volley of bullets down at Shina.

Shina blocked the barrage with a shield of aura but found herself pushed back from the hard-hitting assault. When Noel flipped back she suddenly had a black rocket launcher in her hands with a shark-faced missile plugged into it. "Go!" She yelled out before firing the missile downward. Shina quickly merged her pistols into a thick sniper rifle and aimed it upward, firing a piercing laser through the missile and causing it to blow up midway through, creating a large cloud of dust that reached Shina and got her coughing a little.

Noel ran at Shina and broke the cloud in the process, then when she was at close range Noel jammed the barrel of her gun against Shina's chest and exclaimed "BLOOM TRIGGER!" before pulling the trigger. Shina got her aura up for protection as a large energy blast was fired. Noel then swiftly spun around to get behind Shina and attempted to ram her backside with her left shoulder. Shina put up another veil of aura, but as Noel was pushed back from getting in contact with that she suddenly swung her guns as hard as could in an arch in front of her body and managed to smash right through the aura.

Shina let out a gasp of shock, but her mind could only think in glee _"Soooo cool!"_ even as Noel was ready to take full advantage of her self-inflicted distraction. Noel turned her Bolverks into a giant mobile machine gun and slammed the barrel into Shina's back, and holds her ground while unleashing a continuously spray of bullets that blew Shina into the air. After she was done, Noel dispelled her gun and merged both Bolverks into one long weapon as she leaned back. The sides of the Bolverks opened up as a shot charged up at the barrel.

"Those breasts are illegal!" Noel screamed in the name of her broken confidence before firing a strong piercing beam straight at Shina. Right in the nick of time, Shina put up a thick veil of aura and the beam just grinded against it and pushed her back through the air. Shina landed on the ground while Noel panted a little bit.

Shina's eyes were wide with awe and her thoughts filled with compliments at her opponent _"She's really good! The speed, the accuracy, the gracefulness…When she's battle, she's like a whole different person. But she has an expendable resource to draw on, so as long as I keep on the defensive she'll pass-out eventually."_

However, before the battle could continue any further, the loud sound of a vehicle running could be heard coming to the east. Noel and Shina looked up at the top of the escalator and saw a monorail train taking off rather quickly. Noel squeaked in a panic "Oh no oh no! I lost track of time!" She made a mad dash for the escalator, but the train was already far gone. With a shrill, disappointed cry, Noel suddenly dropped to her knees with her guns laid on their sides. She hung her head and looked as though her world had just ended.

"Screwed up again…Can't follow my mission, can't capture a criminal…I'm just so worthless…" Hearing Noel beat herself up struck a cord in Shina's heart, and she lowered her pistols and dispelled the Gunslinger Drive. Now back in her regular clothes, Shina glanced down and guiltily thought _"This is all my fault…"_

Without a second thought, Shina approached the sniffling Noel from the side and kneeled down. Noel lifted her head up a little and asked with some bitterness "W-Why are you still here…? A-Aren't you going to run away…?"

Shina shook her head and crossed her arms atop her kneecaps, gesturing a hand out and saying "There's nothing to be gained from running off. Besides, ya really need someone to put some pep back into your step." Noel sniffled and responded "H-H-Haven't you done enough to me…?"

Shina closed her eyes a bit and told her "Yeah, I didn't exactly give the best first impression, did I? But I never meant any harm, honest!" Noel slowly turned her head towards Shina and muttered with a couple tears trickling down the sides of her face "Y-Yeah…right…"

"I'm serious!" Shina took a hand out and rubbed Noel on the back, giving it a couple gentle pats before telling her "I meant everything I said before. You're cute, you're kind, and you've got a lot of skills with those firearms of yours. If I had to give a flaw, it's that you don't have enough confidence in yourself."

"…E-Easy for you to say…" Noel stammered. Shina took up a serious expression and remarked in turn "Yeah, it kinda is. Look, I'll save you the long advice session and keep it brief. When it comes to confidence, you're the one who ultimately decides whether you have it or not." Noel's eyes stopped trickling for a moment, and Shina brushed a hand beside her face and continued in a light-hearted tone "Sure you're going to screw up. You'll trip, you'll fall…you'll miss a train. But if you push yourself to get on your feet and try your darnedest again and again….Then you'll be really surprised what you can accomplish."

When Shina was done, she peered open one of her eyes and saw Noel fighting her sadness to no avail as she let out a sweet little laugh, which started to go for a bit longer until she was fully consumed by it. Noel went at it for a few seconds before she stopped and rubbed her right eye dry, telling Shina in an embarrassed tone "I feel like such a doofus now. You're a nice person after all, huh Shina?"

"Weeeeell I wouldn't say that considering I DID break some laws and all…" Shina giggled nervously for a bit before giving Noel a straightforward look and telling her "But I'm not going to ignore someone if they're feeling distressed. That's just how I was raised."

Noel blinked a couple times then started to stand up along with Shina. With Bolverk dispelled Noel rested her arms beside her hips and remarked "Well…thank you. I feel a little better now." However, her expression returned to that unfitting distress as she looked up at the top of Kagutsuchi and spoke "But it still doesn't change the fact that I missed the train…"

Shina rubbed the back of her head and mentioned "Well if it makes ya feel any better, I lost my chance at the train as well." Noel looked at Shina and said "That's right, you were waiting for a ride too…" Clearly thinking on that info, Noel quietly asked "If you don't mind telling me…why were you trying to go to the Kagutsuchi Branch?"

Shina put her hands beside her hips and responded "Oh yeah, guess I should fess up on that huh? I was trying to sneak into the HQ so I could try and get some information on an object I'm searching for. It's a curved stone that looks like it could connect to others. It's a long shot but…have you heard about anything like that?"

Noel shook her head and responded "Sorry. I'm not even familiar with the Kagutsuchi Branch. Is this stone a Grimoire?" Shina was the one shaking her head this time while also saying "It's pretty useful like one, but no. It's just a stone."

"Are you sure it's in the city?" Noel inquired. Shina nodded and firmly told her "Pretty as pink positive! Wouldn't be here otherwise." Noel then quickly told her "Well, I can't help you search for this stone…But if you still want to check the archives, I can take you there."

"Ya sure? Might not be very kosher to bring a criminal along…" Shina giggled humorously, but Noel honestly told her "It's ok. I feel I can trust you now. Though we'll have to wait a few hours for the train to come back around…"

Upon saying that, a guttural gurgle came from the two girl's stomachs. Shina's drowned out Noel's, and the two laid a hand on their bellies and gave out an embarrassed giggle. Shina gestured a hand out and admitted "Heheh…I haven't eaten anything all day." Noel said with another giggle "Same here."

Noel then suggested "If we're going to have to wait, might as well fill our tummies with yummy food! I heard there's a good Thai restaurant in Orient Town." Shina blinked a couple times and then thought _"Oh sweet, she must be talking about the restaurant Alex and I were at! Looks like I'm going to get my Thai treats after all!"_ The very thought made her lick her lips. The two then walked off to go get some food, leaving the remaining crowd a bit confused as to what the hell just went down…

 _Next Time: Heart-to-Heart_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Shina and Noel**

After remembering to run back to get Noel's coat and a second set of tickets for the next train, Shina and Noel made their way to Orient Town to eat. Their stomach growls were nothing but a painful distraction as they made their way through Kagutsuchi. Noel moaned and occasionally rubbed her belly, remarking in a voice of dismay "Uuuuuh…I wish I didn't skip lunch…"

Shina glanced at her and asked "You don't make a habit of that, do you?" Noel shook her head and replied with a look of embarrassment "N-Not at all! But I've been so busy trying to find Maj-" She quickly clamped her mouth shut with both hands before pulling them away and apologizing profusely "S-Sorry…! I shouldn't be blurting that out in public."

Shina closed her eyes and with a dry smile told her "I-Isn't it a bit late to be considering that?" Noel made a high-pitched gasp and said "Ah, you're right! I'm such a dolt…"

"You're probably not thinking straight cause you're hungry." Shina remarked, to which Noel giggled with a blush in her cheeks and said "Yeah, probably. What about you Shina? Did you forget to eat lunch too?"

"And breakfast…and dinner last night." Shina tried to play that off as nonchalantly as she could, but Noel instead just turned around and stared at her as though her mind had been hit by a truck. "A-And you're still so big…" Noel whispered amidst a short, envious sigh.

Shina put her arms behind her back and admitted "I just got into town and have been so busy looking for information I forgot I was even hungry." Noel perked her eyebrows up and murmured in confusion "How do you even manage that…?"

Not hearing that, Shina quickly and cheerfully remarked "Well, once we find the restaurant we'll get out bodies and minds fit and fine again in no time!" Noel got her mind off the impossibility of Shina's endurance against hunger and stammered "R-Right! According to the map I got, it should be right around here somewhere…"

Noel poked a hand out of her coat and placed it before her forehead. As she looked around, Shina remarked with a slight giggle beforehand "Uhhh…Noel?"

"What is it?"

"We're not even in Orient Town yet…" Shina pointed up so Noel would notice the sheer lack of any oriental aesthetics or signs in the area. Noel widened her eyes and squeaked out in distress "Aaaah, no! B-But the map said to go east…!"

"Lemme take a look at it." Shina requested while gently waving her fingers out. Noel handed a small electronic device over to Shina, and she tapped the button to activate a projection showing the tiers of Kagutsuchi. Poking on the one labeled 'Orient Town', Shina widened her eyes for a moment and then flipped the device around so Noel could look at it as she explained "Noel…it says 'to go for the best eastern food around, come to Orient Town'. …You read an advertisement."

"A-Advertisement?" Noel stammered for a moment, then let out a sniffle and asked herself "How could I be so stupid…?" Shina quickly tried to cheer her up by saying "It's not thaaaaat bad. According to the map we're only a staircase descent away from our destination anyways! See?" Shina gave the device back to Noel while pointing at the spot they were at.

Noel took it back with a surprised look in her eyes. With a sigh she lamented "I knew I should've paid more attention in tech class…" and put the device away. The frown she had was quickly perked to a smile by Shina placing her pointer fingers on the sides of Noel's face and pushing up on the cheeks.

"Don't beat yourself up so much Noel. A smile is prettier than any frown!" Shina pulled back as Noel suddenly started giggling merrily. Through that laughter she remarked "I-I wish you'd stop touching me like t-that."

Shina rubbed the back of her head and admitted "I'm not very good with personal space, am I?" Noel laughed some more and had a bit of bluntness in her voice as she fought her laughter to point out "No…no you aren't…"

Noel stopped after a few seconds and then had a more genuine smile on her face. The sigh she had reeked of nostalgia, Shina could recognize that cleanly. But she didn't feel like prodding about that, and let Noel remark "So…we just have to go down the stairs?" before she gave a nod of the head in response. The two then headed in that direction and ended up in Orient Town. Things were set up just the same as Shina could recall, just without any of the lights on due to the time of day.

Noel's eyes widened in awe as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and she commented nice and slow "This place is so festive…I wonder how it'll look tonight for the New Year's celebration." Shina blinked a couple times and inquired "New Year's? That's tonight?"

"Uh-huh. I-I'm kinda nervous to see what 2200 has to offer." Noel still grinned in spite of the slight concern in her voice. Shina puckered her lips and thought _"Wow, I really forgot how far flung into the future this world is. Guess the way the city looks pulled the wool over my eyes on that one."_

Shina looked around town and happened to notice the alleyway her and Alex had dropped to before. She could recognize it because the same cat they scared off before loitered around there at the moment. Her mind then wandered towards a slight concern for the boy's whereabouts, and in turn she thought _"I wonder if he decided to come here, since…"_ A brief flash of the city's destruction flashed before her eyes, and she clamped her eyelids shut and shook her head to get rid of it.

She quickly put on a smile as Noel faced her and commented "The restaurant's right over there…if I'm reading that sign correctly." Shina couldn't translate the sign Noel was pointing towards, but with the place fresh in her kind she could confirm it with a firm nod and a remark of "It looks right to me. I doubt either of our stomachs are in the mood for a wild Peking duck chase anyways, so lets just try 'em out even if it's not the right place!"

"Wild…Peking duck chase?" Noel was confused by the odd, misspoken metaphor as Shina rushed towards the restaurant ahead of her while hastily proclaiming "Last one there's a rotten egg!" Noel ran after while blurting "N-No fair! You have longer legs!"

Surprisingly, despite Noel's concerns, the race turned out to be pretty close, with Shina winning by just an inch. Noel panted as she laid a hand on the door frame of the entrance and said "I-I'm going to faint…need food…n-need nourishment…" Shina laid a finger against her regretful grin and remarked "Whoops…my bad!"

The waitress Shina had seen the last time quickly ran up to the two and remarked "Oh my! You look famished! Luckily for you, we have plenty of tables open. Please, seat yourself and I'll bring you a menu as soon as possible." Noel and Shina made their way to a two-seat table very close to the entrance, and the waitress brought those familiar menus over to them.

Noel let out a sigh of comfort as she finally caught her breath, and with astute politeness she said "Thank you ma'am…" The waitress remarked "Anything I can get you? We can prepare a bowl of rice if you need sustenance now."

Noel gave a somewhat weak smile and remarked "It's alright. I'll be fine. Thank you for your concern though." The waitress nodded her head and said "I'll take your order whenever you're ready."

Once the waitress walked off, Noel slowly picked the menu up while glancing over at Shina, whose eyes were wandering around the room. "Are you…looking for something?" Shina snapped her gaze forward and chuckled "I-I was actually looking for someone…"

"Someone…?" Noel quietly remarked. Shina nodded her head and stated "I didn't tell ya about that yet, did I? I didn't come here alone. A friend of mine is here in Kagutsuchi too."

"Really? Where are they now?"

"No idea. We got split up by pure accident. I have a pretty good feeling they're somewhere in the city though. We're both looking for the same thing after all."

"Hopefully they don't try and infiltrate the Kagutsuchi Branch like you did…" Noel said with some slight concern. Shina gave a weak grin and admitted "They'd probably forgo tactical espionage action and just go straight for the action."

"So they're a terrorist?!" Noel squealed in sheer disbelief. Shina stammered "W-What, no?! They're just a bit…hot-headed. Not really good at thinking things through…talks with their fists. You know the type, right?"

"Oh, like a hero in one of those Japanese animes!" Noel suddenly and enthusiastically exclaimed, but she quickly pulled her head back and stammered "A-Ah I mean…I-I mean…!" She averted her gaze with a blushing face, not made any better by Shina puffing her cheeks and trying to stop herself by laughing.

"Oh this is embarrassing…" Noel murmured, but Shina quickly and enthusiastically told her "Nonsense! Nothing wrong with varied interests. Ya wouldn't think it, but I'm a big nerd too."

Noel widened her eyes a bit and whispered "That would explain a lot actually…" causing Shina to let out a quick "Hmmm?" before Noel gasped and remarked "N-Nothing!"

Shina smiled and remarked in a confident tone "I'm not worried really. Alex is hot-headed, but I don't think he's stupid." Noel's face froze in an expression of agape shock, and with a bit of sweat on the sides of her face she mentioned "W-Wait…your friend is a…guy?"

"Yeah?" Shina replied like it was no big deal. Noel's pupils shrank and she tried really hard to work up the courage to mention "I-Is he…a-are you…I-in…l-l-l-love…?" She gulped a considerable amount of saliva when she was done and her face was redder than a pepper. Shina responded with a bit of fluster in her face "H-Huh? Not at all! We're just fine-feathered friends!"

"…Shina, you're blushing." Noel dryly pointed out. Shina coughed a couple times and quickly mentioned "Y-You just caught me off-guard with that! I mean really…who jumps to conclusions that quickly?"

"…I'm sorry." Noel hung her head a bit, and her tone insinuated that she thought Shina was hurt by her comment. Shina waved her hand out before her chest and remarked "Don't be! If you want to know the truth though, I do admire Alex a lot."

Noel perked her head up to listen as Shina mentioned "I was kind of a wreck for a good leg of our journey, but because of his support I've started to feel a bit more confident in myself!" Noel started to hang her head a bit, but before Shina could inquire on that the waitress approached the table and asked "Are you two ready?"

Shina looked as Noel perked her head back up before asking her "Are you Noel?" Noel stammered "A-Ah! I almost forgot we were in a restaurant!" She quickly scanned the menu and then slammed it shut, placing it down before she looked to the waitress and said "I-I'd like to try the mabo curry. Not too spicy…please."

"I've never tried a curry before. So I'll take one too. I'd like to keep mine spicy, please!" Shina kindly handed the menu to the waitress, and with an embarrassed fumbling of hers Noel did the same upon remembering to do so. The waitress bowed and then asked "Are you two splitting the bill?"

Shina widened her eyes and looked at her pockets. Pulling them at the edge got but a cloud of dust to fly out of both. Shina then put held her hands in front of her face and gave a puppy-dog like stare, complete with the quiet whimper. Noel sighed and remarked "N-No…I got it." The waitress nodded her head and remarked "Excellent. Your meal will be out shortly."

When the waitress left, Noel glanced at Shina with a drooping frown and sighed. "Why would you come to town without money…" Shina scratched the side of her head and admitted "We haven't got the time to earn cash ourselves. I-I promise to pay you back for this later though."

"Mmm…alright." Noel remarked slowly, then went back to hanging her head a little more than she did before. Her eyelids drooped, as though thoughts were plaguing her mind like a swarm of dirty flies. Shina leaned forward and rested her hands under her chin, kicking her feet up slowly under the chair as she cheerfully suggested "Penny for your thoughts!"

"O-Oh, well…" Noel hesitantly held herself back from saying her thoughts for just a few seconds before looking up and saying "I was thinking about my friends…from my days at the academy."

"Our conversation got ya thinking about them, eh?" Shina said with a great big smile. Noel closed her eyes and gave a smaller smile, remarking in a gentle, nostalgic tone "Tsubaki and Makoto. We were really close friends back then. Hehehe…we were always getting into all kinds of trouble."

"Like this one time, we were assigned kitchen duty in the cafeteria for the day. Tsubaki, being as orderly as she was, insisted we stick to the soup recipe. Makoto, on the other hand, thought it'd be better to add a bit more 'ZING!' to the soup. So she went into the storage room and climbed the shelves without a ladder just to get one of the best spices she could think of. Tsubaki and I tried to stop her, but once she set her mind on something there is just no stopping Makoto."

Noel's cheeks blushed as she broke into a cute little giggle. "Next thing we know, she tripped and brought the whole spice rack crashing down to the ground with her. If it wasn't for Makoto's tail breaking her fall, things could've gone a lot worse than they did. Instead, we just ended up sneezing up a storm from all the spices, and then we had to clean it up later."

Shina brushed a hand away from her chin and commented "Sounds to me like you had a true blue friendship." Noel sighed and replied "We did. I haven't seen them since we graduated though…I know Makoto joined the Intelligence Division, but I've heard nothing about Tsubaki. She was always one of the top students in our class though…I'm sure she was able to get the position she wanted."

As Noel talked, Shina closed her eyes a bit and thought back to her days of school. The warmth of the classroom, the joys that could only be had with fellow students…the pride in her mother and sister's eyes when she got good grades. It was all feelings that Shina had missed, and in turn she could use those feelings to ask Noel "You really miss them, huh?"

"Mmm-hmm…" Noel slowly nodded her head and then closed her eyes. "My only wish for the new year…is to see them again." Then Noel opened them back up and giggled embarrassingly. "S-Sorry…I usually don't talk that much."

Shina perked her eyes and said "Huh? Oh psshaaaw…Don't worry about it." She waved her hand down and had naught a care on her mind about the length the girl had talked. Noel then asked in a curious tone "Do you have a new year's wish, Shina?"

"Eh? …Well, it's the same wish I always have." Shina took it upon herself to act more respectable as she honestly replied "To ensure the safety of my people. Especially my little sis and mother."

"Oh I get it now…you're looking for this artifact to save your people." Noel commented, a tinge of awe in her voice. Shina nodded her head and told her right away "Without it, this tyrant will be able to keep ruling through power and fear. It's kind of a long story really, I don't wanna keep you here so long we miss the train again."

Noel just looked at Shina with her eyelids fluttering rapidly. She had no words for quite a while until she suddenly remarked feebly "Wow…y-you're so brave Shina. Going this far away from home to help your family…I don't think I could ever do that."

"Well thank you but…didn't we already have this talk?" Shina remarked in hopes of changing the subject for the sake of Noel's confidence, but was too late as the girl went on to say with a melancholy sigh preceding it "I'm not smart like Tsubaki, I'm not confident like Makoto…And Major Kisaragi's always calling me useless…I-I…"

Suddenly, a ceramic bowls filled with steamy rice and saucy meat and tofu was placed in front of Noel and Shina. The waitress handed the two a pair of fancy red chopsticks that just so happened to have a cute little panda on top of each. Noel's eyes gained a sparkling glaze as she slowly reached for the chopsticks while the waitress explained "These are a New Year's special. Please enjoy."

When Noel brought the chopsticks close to her face and all the lack of confidence on her face was replaced by her cutesy trance as her expression regressed to that of a child opening Christmas presents for the first time. "P-Pandas…!" Noel squeaked before caressing the cold chopsticks against the side of her face nice and slow.

Shina let out a sigh of relief that things didn't escalate further than that, then she pointed her chopsticks out and remarked "Ya'll want to eat your curry before it gets cold. Nothing's worse than cold rice, lemme tell ya." Noel snapped out of her trance with a gasp and said "I-I'm sorry! B-But pandas are just so cute and cuddly and…"

Noel quickly slipped back into her trance as she looked down at the chopsticks, then started humming to herself peacefully while bobbing her head back and forth. Shina smiled and decided to just enjoy her meal for the time being. A half an hour passed before the two finished their meals. As Shina laid back and patted down on her satisfied stomach, her face had become red and sweaty, with Noel's looking perfectly fine as she proclaimed in a panic "S-Shina! You're burning up!"

Shina grinned and boldly declared "I-It's alright…This is nothing like the heat of battle!" From her gaze, she could see two Noel's sitting in front of her, but they were blurry as all hell. Shina raised a hand up and remarked "So both of you can just stop being worry-warts…Waaaait a tic.."

Noel quickly got up and took her milk over to Shina, handing it off and saying "P-Please! Drink this up!" Shina opened her mouth up wide and forced the milk down her gullet, giving her exactly what she needed to fight back the devilish spices that had consumed her. After a few seconds of Shina staring blankly ahead, Noel fanned both her hands against the steam rising out of her mouth and exclaimed "D-Don't let it win Shina!"

Then, with a firm blink of the eyes, Shina swung her head up and swiftly said "Well, all better now!" as though what happened was no big deal. Noel backed up and blankly stared at the girl, stammering to find the words to respond to what just happened. Shina, on the other hand, rubbed the back of her head and with a goofy grin that had her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth she remarked "That was a rush! I gotta ask mom to try making Thai food when I get home!"

Noel slowly turned her head towards the waitress that had been watching this scene unfold, and with a wobbling hand held her credit card up and remarked "T-Thank you for your services…I-I think we'll pay now." Once the payment had been received, Noel and Shina made their way out of the restaurant with satisfied looks on their faces.

Noel pulled out her small device and popped it open, widening her eyes upon noticing the time. "Ah! It's already seven o'clock?!" Shina whistled impressively at that "Wow, didn't think we were lost for THAT long."

"We have to hurry or we'll miss the train again!" Noel yelled out before sprinting off to the east. Shina chuckled for a moment while quietly remarking "W-We do have an hour to go still…" but she quickly followed after. The two made it back to the terminal station and waited out the last half-an-hour quietly on the bench. When the monorail showed up, Noel and Shina handed their tickets off at a console in front of their ride and stepped inside. They were the only two on the train, so they sat next to each other as it made it's way to the top of Kagutsuchi.

Shina stretched her legs out and commented "Oooooh…I'm so glad there's room to streeeeeetch!" As she pushed her arms above her head and stretched her chest out, Noel looked at her with a blush in her cheeks until Shina remarked "I could've sworn trains are supposed to be a lot more cramped than this."

Noel shook her head a bit then stood up, walking to the windows on the other side. Shina joined her a moment later and looked out to find some fireworks being fired off from Orient Town. The explosions couldn't be heard, but that didn't dilute the beauty of all those different colored sparks emblazoning themselves across the starry night sky. Noel and Shina's eyes were filled with wonder, and they both said in unison "Wooooow!"

Noel right after remarked "It's so beautiful…I've never seen a fireworks display like that before…" Shina added on to that by mentioning "Neither have I…but the aurora borealis' back home comes preeeetty darn close in terms of spectacle!"

Noel closed her eyes and remarked "I wonder if Major Kisaragi is watching these somewhere…" Shina pointed out "If he's inside the Kagutsuchi HQ, then probably not." Noel released a drawn-out sigh and pulled a bit away from the window, even though the fireworks weren't done firing. Noel then turned and sat back down on the soft couch she was on before.

Shina blinked a couple times then sat down as well. Sensing discord rising up in Noel's emotions, Shina got her attention with a gesture of the hand and asked "Hey, ya know what Noel? I just had a great idea." Noel perked her head up and asked "W-what is it?"

Shina stuck her hand out all the way and cheerfully but bluntly exclaimed "Lets be friends!" Noel blurted "W-What?!" and pulled back, nearly falling off the bench in the process. Shina saved her with aura, and once the girl was back upright she remarked in quiet confusion "D-Do you really want to be friends with me?"

"Sure as sure can be sure!" Shina blurted out with her smile wide as can be. Noel blinked a little bit then grinned herself. She took her hand up, paused for a moment partway to consider things over, but then she grabbed onto Shina's hand and shook it. Shina patted Noel on the back with her other hand and remarked "I always enjoy making new friends! Now you'll have a friend with ya to enjoy the coming of the New Year!"

"Heehee…well, I still have to complete my mission first, but…thank you." Noel was happier than she ever had been before Shina so far. Shina let go of Noel and told her "Then ya just have more motivation than ever before to succeed!"

"W-Well lets not go that far…" Noel murmured, which caused Shina to giggle a little more. Their ride went smoothly the rest of the way, and eventually they were stopped before a large staircase leading up a massive complex. As the doors open, it was odd that the only noise in the area came from the train's monotone _"You have arrived at Area.01...All non-NOL personnel, please maintain your distance from the Kagutsuchi Branch HQ. Disobey, and you will be terminated."_

As the duo got out of the monorail, Shina had to pull her head back pretty far just to see the whole building. It was impressive in size, but not so much in appearance. There were a few angel and lion statues near the front door and a couple flags hung up on the outer walls, but otherwise it looked like some run-of-the-mill cathedral. Then Shina lowered her head and started to follow Noel up the stairs as the girl was slowly scanning the area.

"That's strange…there's no one here." Noel commented, a bit of fear coming through in her tone. Shina closed her eyes and tried to peer into the building, but a radiating veil of magic pulsed around the perimeter and prevented her from looking inside. _"Magic? What's up with that…?"_ Shina thought in a highly suspecting tone.

The two reached the top of the stairs and before them was an arched steel door with a series of lines stretching out like rays of sunlight from the symbol of a winged protector. The door towered over the two, and was quite intimidating. Even so, Noel approached it and laid a hand on the front. "There's an Arsmagus on here…It seems to have been loosened recently." Noel pressed a little harder on the door, and it started to creak open.

With a frightening squeal Noel hopped back and watched as the door opened just enough for the two to be able to slip through. Noel's heart beat a little fast until Shina laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I don't think anyone's home, Noel." Shina commented. Noel looked into the dark corridor beyond the door and remarked in a slightly puzzled manner "That can't be…Why? Why would it be empty?"

Noel's expression tensed before she commented with some worry "Could it be…because of the Grim Reaper, Ragna the Bloodedge?" Shina played dumb and remarked in a ditzy manner "Ragna the Bloodedge? That's a real try hard name if I ever heard one…"

"He's no joke Shina. Ragna the Bloodedge is a criminal wanted all around the world by the NOL for the destruction of two branches. He's supposedly killed thousands of soldiers with no mercy and reaped their souls. Didn't you see his wanted poster back at the restaurant?" When Noel asked that, Shina thought back to the poster Alex showed her, then took that moment to make a joke to light Noel's mood "Well he's pretty ugly…"

Noel kept a serious expression on her face as she mentioned "I hope it's not him…Captain Hazama warned me not to engage if I ran across him." Shina waved a hand out and with a confident thumbs up remarked "Oh phooey. If that Ragna guy shows up, I'll fight for ya. But right now, don't we need to look for that Major Kisaragi fella?"

Noel widened her eyes and yelled out "M-Major! That's right! If the Grim Reaper's here, then…" She made no hesitation to sprint into the building. Shina swung her hand out and exclaimed "Hey! Don't be too reckless!" then went in hot pursuit after her. The entrance was a long hallway with plenty of statues on both sides that depicted some sort of divine figure with a tome and winged judgment scepter. Ionic pillars kept the place secure, and each one had a red cloth flag with the same symbol on the door placed onto it.

Noel kept running until she was in the lobby, where she suddenly grinded to a halt and scanned the area. Shina paused behind her and took a look at the place while she had the chance. The place was lit up by a giant diamond chandelier in the cylindrical center of the room. There was a holographic map of the planet displayed before the watchful eye of a MUCH larger statue, and it's feet couldn't even be seen due to the darkness in the chasm below.

The place had plenty of floors to explore, that was for certain, but for all the space that was in this building there appeared to not be a single soul inhabiting it besides Shina and Noel. Shina once more closed her eyes and attempted to search for life, and yet again a veil of magic swept over the building and blocked her gaze. At that point her heart beat a little faster against her chest, not helped by Noel's hollow efforts to call for someone echoing throughout the hallways.

"Hello?! Is anyone here?! Major?! Anybody?!" Noel was starting to sound a little frightened by the time she stopped, and she quickly turned to Shina for some manner of solace. "Do you think they might be celebrating in the city?"

"…Does the NOL usually get vacation time?" Shina hoped to ease those concerns with another question, but Noel simply shook her head and remarked in melancholy "With Ragna the Bloodedge running around, I doubt it."

Noel closed her eyes and let out a distressed breath. Her body was trembling, especially at the knees, and from Shina's perspective the worst thing about this is that she couldn't think of a way to cheer her up. Biting her lower lip, Shina glanced aside and made a quiet, thinking mumble for a bit.

"Maybe…we should try exploring the other floors?" Was the best suggestion Shina could come up with. Noel slowly nodded her head, but it was almost like out of an obligation to respond rather than a conscious effort to do so. She then started walking at a dull pace towards the staircases on the right, her feet dragging like concrete.

Once there, the two went downward, with Noel continuing to call out for Major Kisaragi, as it seemed she had lost hope of finding anyone else. The echoes got quieter and quieter the further they went into the building, and the marble walls started to give way to a rocky, cavernous appearance. "I didn't know this building went this far down…" Noel commented as she took her hand off the nearby railing and looked past it. There was something at the bottom that neither she nor Shina could make out.

Thankfully, at the end of the staircase, there was a small stone lift that could carry them the rest of the way down. Noel started walking towards it without a word, as though she found herself drawn to the mystery of what lied at the bottom. Shina quickly let out a tense grunt and a prolonged moan of worry. _"Ah crud! I can't let her go down there by herself!"_ So she quickly got on the lift with Noel, and their presence caused it to start it's slow descent to the basement.

Noel remarked in a puzzled tone "I don't understand…why can't we find anyone?" Shina shook her head and mentioned "Someone's to blame for this. We'll just have to get the answers out of the first person we find." She sounded confident about that, but in her mind tensions were rising the closer they got to the bottom.

Then the lift suddenly jolted as it reached the bottom, shaking the two nearly off their feet. When they regained their balance, Shina was the first to step off and take a look around. The bright colors of the world above seemed like an afterthought in the face of such decrepit and dust-covered scenery. There were some strange round devices on the left wall of this chamber, all of them eventually connecting to a single gear on the ground. There was a small passageway to the right that was cold and uninviting, especially as it ended on a sealed, demonically cracked doorway.

But the most mysterious sight in this room was what lied in the chasm in the center. Buried past layers of hollow fog was a tunnel sealed off by layers of walls made out of retractable, metallic wings. Shina's heart grew tense and she her feet unable to even budge as she gazed upon this sight and suddenly started to feel a thick but faint heartbeat coming from behind those walls. Someone, or someTHING was behind there.

Though common sense would normally dictate one to think the contrary, all Shina thought as she looked down was _"I-I need that to open…"_ Recognizing that was an odd thing to consider, Shina shook her head and quickly corrected herself _"No no no! That's the last thing I should ever want! You know what's in there Shina, and if Noel sticks around then…"_

Shina looked back and saw Noel standing beside her, also looking down into the tunnel with her pupils shrunken and shaking. "This place…w-why does it feel so…familiar…?" She murmured in a trance. Noel's face winced in pain and she stumbled back a couple feet, letting out an agonizing grunt before remarking "I-I…no…no no no…I wasn't…It can't be…"

Shina turned around and yelled as fast as she could "Noel, snap out of it!" Right on that urging, Noel's eyes returned to normal and she looked at Shina while inquiring "W-What…? What's happening to me…?" Noel curled her arms up feebly against her chest and squinted her eyes, the last bit of support her legs could offer giving way and dropping her to her knees in an instant. A puff of fog then emerged with every one of her breaths.

Shina got down in front of Noel and remarked hastily "I need to get you out of here." Then suddenly, a quiet roar rippled through the room, having emerged from the tunnel the two had just observed. With goosebumps riddled across her skin, Shina slowly turned around and stood up with pupils shrunk. The fog was swept away from the room as light started to creak through the center of the tunnel.

The wings that held back whatever was inside of there retreated into the walls, revealing a vast furnace of boiling yellow flames that could easily make one feel as though they had entered Hell. A wave of blue fog spread from this cauldron of calamity as eight pincers dug itself into the flames. The whole building shook, and Shina widened her eyes upon recognizing this same sensation as the one that occurred before the destruction of Kagutsuchi. However, the tremors were not nearly strong enough to affect the city outside…

From within the cauldron something began to emerge. It was a towering obelisk that had many similarities to a key, or in some ways it looked like the hilt of a sword. Either way, it had two curved edges connected to a thick hexagonal center. Above that hexagon lied a giant boiling gemstone wrapped in chains, and in the front of it like a door surrounded by pointed wings. As the obelisk finished rising, the tremors came to an end as well, replaced by a bright white light being flushed out by the door, and a strange azure colored symbol briefly flashing amidst the light.

Shina covered her eyes, but it did little good to protect her from the light's intensity. When the brightness faded, her vision was temporarily blurred. However, she could still hear something from not too far ahead. Of all things to listen to in these tense times, the calming ringing of wind chimes was not one of them. Looking up, Shina saw someone descending to the edge of the floor in front of her. By the time her vision had cleared, Shina's heart skipped a beat and she let out a panicked gasp.

Standing before her was a quiet girl roughly as tall as Noel. Their skin was flushed of most color, giving them the presence of a ghost, and the sunken blood red iris did little to dissuade that perspective. They wore a bright sky-blue jumpsuit that fit tightly around their upper body, leaving the legs past the kneecaps and parts of the fingers bare. She kept a long flowing white cape on thanks to a metal plate in front of her neck, and attached around it thanks to small links were a series of red seals. Over her right eye was a metallic eyepatch with a red seal that could clearly be opened, and her long silver hair was kept cleanly in a flowing braid thanks to a single blue blade at the end.

The girl landed softly on the ground, and from first appearances alone it could seem as though they were incapable of harm. Shina would not play the fool here. Even ignoring her prior knowledge, her gut churned a cautious message as she stared into the lifeless eyes of this newborn machine. Gritting her teeth into a worried scowl, Shina had but one thought on her mind _"Murakumo Unit number thirteen…Nu. The heart of the Black Beast itself…"_

As though she could read the terror shackled to Shina's mind, Nu's lips slowly raised and parted into the tiniest of grins. It was an image Shina would not soon forget, even if the expression faded just as quickly as it appeared. Then, as though the fear was not enough of a weight on Shina's heart, a hole opened up in Nu's body, and through the mechanical flesh pushed forth the object that she was looking for. The curved stone, the artifact piece. Shina at this point could only bring herself to let out a confused murmur of "No…I-It can't be…"

 _Next Time: The First Calamity_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Awakening the Chaos**

Shina stood stiff in place before Nu for what felt like an eternity. Her eyes were fixated on the artifact piece sticking out from the doll's gut. It was so close, and yet it felt so far out of her reach. Time crawled to a halt as she gathered her thoughts _"How could she have it? She was just born…there's no way. There's no way this is possible!"_

Her body, riddled with goosebumps, shook a little bit while Nu continued to stand still and say nothing. The only motion came from the wavering cape on her body. Shina closed her eyes and murmured "Could it…have something to do with that being following us around?"

She could recall quite vividly the things she had seen and heard about the being who had been plaguing their journey thus far. They seemed intent on making the search for the artifact pieces even more difficult than it already was by giving the stones to evildoers and strengthening them with a desolate and powerful aura.

And at this time, Nu was definitely the best choice to give the artifact to. Shina had to lambaste herself for not considering this possibility sooner, especially since now Noel had been dragged down to this horrific site. Shina glanced back and saw the poor girl still kneeling on the ground, her skin paler than a ghost and her eyes trembling as though on the verge of tears.

" _I-I'm sorry Noel. If only I had connected the dots sooner…"_ Shina looked back at Nu, watching as the artifact piece retracted into the doll's body. Shina swung her hand out and grit her teeth, but her arm couldn't even reach the halfway mark let alone grasp what she desired to have. Then, for the first time, the doll spoke.

"Loading…loading…loading…loading…Complete…" Nu's voice echoed with a monotone, robotic feel, but there was also something familiar about it. To Shina, the machine's voice reminded her a lot of Noel's. Shina swung her right hand out and drew her rapier from the aura, but as she did so she could hear the sound of a cloth collapsing to the ground. Just a glimpse back revealed that Noel had dropped her coat and was now limply holding Bolverk in both hands with her head hung and her body standing stiffly erect.

It was as though she had become possessed, and a dull, tired tone was used as she spoke in a manner unbecoming of her. "This place is…familiar…What? Huh…What?" Noel's eyes trembled as her voice broke into momentary confusion. Shina turned around all the way and remarked "Noel! If you're hearing voices in your head, you have to ignore them!"

Noel was too deep into the trance for Shina's voice to even reach her, and she kept on droning "Are these…my memories? Or…yours? Mine…? Or are they…ours?" Shina bit her lower lip and her mind raced to determine how to stop Noel's harmful behavior. As she did so, Nu suddenly remarked "Scanning: complete…Auto-mode: confirmed. Scanning: Complete…IFF Determined. Processing…Subjects determined to be hostile."

Noel murmured "Who are you…? I…I…I…" and as she lied on the verge of losing herself to the madness of this situation, Shina suddenly put all she could into a hard slap across her face. Noel's eyes went wide in shock and she raised a hand to the burning red skin on her cheek, looking ahead as Shina was staring straight at her with fist held gripping before her waist and her teeth grit and clattering.

"You…don't need to listen to those voices Noel! You're just being tricked!" Shina mustered a lie that she hated herself for having to say, even if it meant helping her new friend out. Noel murmured in a meek, surprised tone "S-Shina…? I don't understand…"

" _It's better if you don't figure out your true self, Noel…"_ Shina then swung her arm out beside her body and exclaimed "There'll be plenty of time to figure this stuff out later! I need your help to stop this thing before it's too late!" Noel murmured "T-Thing…?" before glancing past Shina and taking a closer look at Nu. With a hop back, Noel exclaimed in fright "W-What is that thing?! W-W-Why is it buried down here…in an NOL HQ?"

Shina turned back around and swung her rapier out, remarking as quickly as she could "T-That doesn't matter right now. It has the artifact piece I've been looking for inside it's body!" Noel's mouth went agape and the stress was getting to her body, as once more she began to tremble. "I-I don't understand…I-I just don't understand…"

Nu looked straight at Noel and remarked in an indirect manner "Target identified as Boundary Interference Prime Field Device. Requesting specifications." Noel stammered for a couple seconds "P-Prime Field…?" then her eyes suddenly turned blank and she murmured in that monotone manner "I am…Boundary Interface Prime Field Device #12. Anti-Sankishin Core Unit…Mu…"

Shina swung her head back and exclaimed desperately "Noel! Snap out of it, please!" while Nu quickly went on to mention "Comparing…Acknowledging existence of identical device. Asserting difference…Boundary Interface Prime Field Device #13. Anti-Sankishin Core Unit…Nu. Irreparable error detected within target…Target is incomplete…I order you to self-destruct."

Noel stammered so painfully that her brain was clearly on the verge of a breakdown from the strain "I-I-I am…" But then Shina leaped between Noel and Nu and slammed down on the Gunslinger Drive stone to activate it's power, and she proceeded to aim her pistols immediately after the transformation while declaring "That's enough out of you, Nu! Leave Noel alone!"

Noel's eyes went back to normal, and she held Bolverk up to the sides of her head and screamed "P-Please…stop…! All these voices in my head…They hurt so much!" Those cries of pain made Shina's chest tighten in grief, and it was getting to the point where she considered just knocking Noel out to make her pain stop. She slowly raised her pistol back, her grip loose and trembling while a finger was moving for the trigger. All that she could hear in her head was the thumping of her heart against her chest.

With a cold sweat dripping across her body, Shina laid the finger on the trigger for a few seconds but then slowly pulled it away. She just did not have what it took to do it, even if it would be for the benefit of a friend. _"It's just…too cruel…"_

"S-Shina…please…h-help me…" Noel weakly begged. Shina closed her eyes and took a deep breath, gripping the pistols beside her body and standing tall. Then she flared her eyelids open and threw a nasty glare at Nu, declaring back to Noel "I'll do everything I can Noel! I WILL protect you!"

Nu's body then began to levitate a tiny bit off the ground. With a dull focus towards Shina, the machine remarked "Identifying…Identifying…Failure to recognize target from supplied databases…Existence unconfirmed…Target exhibiting high aggression…Threat level: S…Activating Lux Sanctus: Murakumo." Then, a black aura erupted around Nu's body and her eye turned a hollow white while a thick silver and blue sword larger than her slammed to the ground behind her, blowing a cloud of dust across the area.

"H-Here we go…" Shina remarked as the dust parted and Nu stood in the same spot, her body transformed. Her legs were wrapped up in thick cybernetic leggings that replaced her feet with round, bladed tips to stand on. A pair of small blades had been placed on half-gauntlets around her wrists, and her cape had been replaced with the shoulders and collar of a shirt that was connected to a brace underneath her breasts. Covering her eyes was a thin, sleek visor with a long horn on each side and a glowing white gem in the center of the visor itself. Finally, behind her back were eight disembodied blades that acted as a pair of floating wings.

On top of that, the colors of her body had changed. Anything that was white was now black, whatever was blue was now varying shades of red, and her hair had become pure white instead of silver. The blades floating behind her were silver and draped in a hellish darkness that brought back memories of the brief moment Shina had glimpsed the frightening power of the Black Beast. And still that black aura surrounded Nu, feeding her more power.

Shina's heart beat fast, and with a swift gulp she murmured _"This is your chance Shina…remember everything Alex taught you…"_ Then she aimed her pistols at Nu, who hunched over and remarked "Executing target" before taking off so fast her body vanished for just a moment. She reappeared in front of Shina with the sword on her right arm ready to stab through Shina's chest.

Shina crossed her guns and summoned a shield of aura that Nu's blade dragged itself through in an attempt to break it. Then the machine stabbed the ground and rotated herself to try and slice the weakened aura with her bladed leg. Shina's aura shattered and she was launched skyward, with Nu keeping herself bent down as the floating blades aimed up and fired straight forward one after another at Shina.

Shina flipped around and stuck to the wall, firing her bullets off as quickly as she could to deflect the blades off their given path. Though they were falling back with every shot, Nu quickly stood up and held her hands out while remarking "Pointless…" Then four of the blades crossed paths with each other in pairs of two while curving back around to go for Shina's sides. The other four went straight down for Noel.

With a widening of her eyes, Shina kicked off the wall right as the blades stabbed into it, then with a quick somersault she coated her legs in aura and kicked the blades with her heels to forcibly impale them into the ground just inches away from Noel's back. Shina then spun to the left to get around Noel and land in front of her, noticing in the interim that the girl was motionless.

"Please Noel! You have to fight!" Shina declared while Nu called the swords back to her body and then charged at the girl again. Shina swung her right pistol out right at the doll's face, but even when facing the barrel down at point-blank Nu dodged the bullet in a nanosecond and then swung all her blades in an arc towards Shina's body.

Shina slid to the right and then fired a couple shots into the side of Nu's visor, cracking it slightly. Nu didn't flinch and fired one sword away from her arc mid-swing to try and pierce Noel's stomach. Shina blinked her eyelids shut tightly and called forth a hand of aura that clasped down on the sword just as the tip of the blade pierced into Noel's clothes. Shina grunted to turn the blade's trajectory so it'd fire to the right of Noel, then she released the aura to let it go.

Then she opened her eyes just in time to notice Nu gathering the other blades behind her head. "Execution…" The doll whispered as she brought the blades down all at once. Shina ducked and used a thick wall of aura to protect her back, then merged her pistols together into a double-barreled shotgun and cocked it against Nu's stomach. With a click of the trigger a blast of aura blew up against the machine's body and sent her skidding back, those bladed legs grinding up sparks from the ground.

Shina stood up and looked at Nu to see that part of the doll's flesh had been blown open, revealing the organs underneath. It was grotesque how accurate it looked to a real human's body, right down to the way the liver pulsed so slimily. The sight of this froze Shina up for a moment, giving Nu a chance to compose herself and remark "Structural integrity compromised…Rerouting sub routines to repairs…"

Then, strands of skin and cloth whipped out from the edges of the hole in her body, quickly stitching the wound back together so finely that it was like a spider weaving a web. The lost blood was sucked back in, and Nu lifted her head up to comment "Reassessing combat parameters…Enhancing exterior defenses…Releasing Drive…"

Nu swung her left hand up and a black rift with a foggy orange edge opened up and fired off a pair of strange black energy blades that were parted at the center. Shina parted her shotgun into two SMGs and unleashed a continuous string of bullets at the blades, but all her attacks reflected off them. Shina widened her eyes and leaped up, hovering in the air until the blades passed under her. They did not, thankfully, change direction.

The moment Shina landed, Nu was right in front of her with right leg swung up for a kick to the face. The girl mistimed her duck and got a scathing cut to the side of the face for her troubles. "G-Gaaaah!" Shina moaned in pain before stumbling to the right, lifting her left arm up to repel the doll with a barrage of bullets. Nu then thrust back, briefly vanishing from sight to avoid the bullets.

Shina laid a hand on the side of her face and felt a dark aura burning out of the bleeding wound. _"T-This is the aura of the Black Beast…How can she have that now?!"_ She was a little freaked out, even as she was able to quickly remove the dark aura with a touch. Nu warped straight at Shina and gave her no quarter to relax, as she swung all her blades right down at Shina's legs

Shina leaped back, but Nu quickly fired the blades off in a spread pattern and a couple of them nearly cut into the girl's skin had it not been for her quickly calling her aura up. Shina hastily switched to a sniper rifle and aimed at Nu's forehead, but a shaky pull of the trigger made her shot only nick off a few hairs from the doll's head. Nu coldly remarked while pulling her blades back "Destruction…"

A massive rift then opened up and unleashed a barrage of tiny blades in a swarm towards Shina. The girl swung her arm out in front of her body and formed a large bubble of aura in front of her body, each blade smashing to dust against it but pushing her closer towards the edge of the cauldron. She had to keep her defense up so much that she was left unaware of the rift opening diagonally behind her, with a blade likely to fly out and pierce her neck.

However, Nu's concentration on both rifts was interrupted when a cross of guns appeared on her body and blew up, forcing her to slide to the left to avoid getting hit. Shina looked over and saw Noel barely holding Bolverk up while panting frantically. "L-Leave…" She stuttered at first, but then yelled out with all her might "Leave my friend alone you freak!" while firing both Bolverks at Nu.

Nu zipped left and right while advancing forward, dodging the shots from Bolverk and even managing to keep up her monotone dictation "Arcus Diabolus: Bolverk detected…Activating Luna Forma…Engage…" A cylindrical veil wrapped around the doll and she suddenly teleported right in front of Noel, using the blunt edge of the blades to ram her straight into the nearby wall.

Noel bounced off the wall and fell to the ground bending down, then she rolled to the left to avoid the energy blades that Nu fired from a rift. Noel raised her Bolverks and fired rapidly at Nu, who glided to the left while swinging her arms out to keep opening more rifts to assault Noel with blades. Noel flipped over the blades and brought both guns down, firing rapidly at Nu as she stopped and swiped her bladed arms out in a flurry to deflect all the bullets.

Noel transformed her guns into a bazooka and fired a few missiles down at Nu. The machine tried to escape, but Shina put a stop to that by putting three towering walls of aura around her. With enough space left for the missiles to slip through, Nu had no choice but to take them and the ensuing explosions head-on.

Noel landed and lowered her guns, panting heavier than before. The fear in her body wasn't as strong enough to stop her completely, but it was clear that she would wear down fast if she kept going with such a stressed mind. Shina could even feel her aura fluctuating out of control. With Nu temporarily kept down from the damage inflicted by the rockets, Shina swung both her pistols out and combined them into a weapon with a bubbly tank on the back.

She used it to create a bubble of aura that flew right over to Noel and contained her, surprising the girl immensely. Noel went against the edge of the bubble as it began to rise and pounded her Bolverks against it. "S-Shina! I thought you wanted me to fight?!" Her voiced came out muffled, but it was clear enough for Shina to hear and respond to with a distressed cry "F-Forget what I said! I don't want you to die because of the mistakes I made! Just get out of this building and get somewhere safe!"

"I don't want to abandon you!" Noel exclaimed, and Shina declared quickly "I-I know that…! …But your friends have to be waiting to see you again out there, right?!" Noel's eyes crunched up and she muttered "B-But I want them to meet you too!"

"I ain't going to die! Come too far for that to happen!" Shina bravely declared while turning to face Nu, where she then used her scouter to scan the presence of the artifact piece within Nu's body, which was strangely limp amongst the smoke cloud. "Just wait for me to get back…I promise I'll be there!" She then swung her arms out and created two large crossbows in her grasp.

"…Time to bust out the heavy artillery." Shina took a gulp of saliva and concentrated her weapons on Nu. Charging aura to create the strongest piercing bolts she could, Shina was mere seconds away from pulling the trigger when Nu suddenly remarked "Everything shall be laid to waste…" and then swung her arm down. Above Noel, a giant sword pierced down from nowhere and smashed against the aura bubble, shattering it apart with little effort and sending Noel hurtling back towards the ground.

"NOEL!" Shina declared, taking a second pause to express her fear before hastily firing the bolts at Nu. However, that miniscule span of time was enough to allow Nu to sprint ahead and intercept Noel mid-fall. It was a completely merciless assault, as Nu drove her right arm through Noel's gut and then pinned her against the wall, painting it with a splash of blood. Noel's cry of pain was quiet and wet, as a trickle of blood started to flow out of the sides of her mouth.

Shina's body froze up, her pupils shrunk down to dots while her ability to breath grew weak. She was fixated on the sight of Noel's body being hung up with no chance to escape or be alive again. Nu had struck her target so perfectly, so mercilessly, there was nothing that could be done no matter how much Shina wished for the contrary.

" _W-Why…"_

Though she had known Noel in person for only a day, Shina could recall all she knew about her for the future. Telling her that she'd see Tsubaki and Makoto again was no lie. Though it'd be through her toughest times, Noel would eventually be reunited with them as true friends once more. Not only that, but she would become more confident in herself, and make new friends because of it.

" _N-No…This isn't supposed to happen…!"_

Shina's expression was gripped in a permanent state of denial. Her head shook slowly at first, then it became more violent and pathetic. She grabbed the sides of her head to try and stop herself, but it just increased the pain throbbing inside of her head as she recalled all the joys that would be lost in Noel's life.

" _I…promised her…I…Promised her!"_

Even if she could get the artifact from Nu's body, what would it matter? She's already _**failed.**_

" _No…I…Alex trained me…I can't be failing…again!"_

She had _**failed**_ Noel. She had _**failed**_ her friends. And she had _**failed**_ herse…se…se…

"NO! I-I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THIS!" Shina swung her crossbows up and fired upon Nu, her face red from grief and rage as tears flung out and brushed the sides of her wildly swinging hair. The bolts she fired pierced into and through Nu's body at various places, and the doll coldly stood up and ripped her bloody hand free from Noel's body. The girl dropped the ground as her killed slowly pivoted around and looked Shina straight on, making no motion of empathy or care in that cold metallic frame of hers and instead switching priorities as meticulously as usual.

"Boundary Interface Prime Field Device #12...Eliminated…Moving to purge non-existent data…" Nu teleported past more of Shina's bolts and appeared in front of her with sword already in mid-swing for her neck. Shina angrily smashed one of her crossbows against Nu's wrist and shattered the weapon just to break it. The machine reeled back with blood dripping out of her twisted wrist, and Shina raised the other crossbow and exclaimed "You'll pay for killing Noel!" before firing a massive bolt right into Nu's skull.

Nu's head lurched back and blood shot out of the wound on her forehead. Shina panted angrily and gripped on the trigger of the crossbow. Looking over the machine's body, she noticed that some of the bolts she fired stopped where the artifact should be. Gritting her teeth she asked "Why…why won't it come out?!" so bitterly that it was like she felt the laws of the world were working against her.

She swung her right arm out and moved her fingers towards the stone with wings draped in front of a blade. _"This has to be enough to end this!"_ However, before she could even tap down on the stone, Nu coldly remarked "Disappear…" and a blade shot forth from a rift Shina could not possibly had seen above her and cut right through the part of the girl's arm before the wrist.

Instead of touching that hope filled stone, Shina's left hand was drenched in a putrid spray of blood as pain rode through her arm and struck her brain like a hot hammer. "A-Ah…!" Her gasps of pain were short at first, then she swung the stub of her arm in front of her body and blocked the blood flow with aura while letting out an incredibly ghoulish scream "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Those screams would continue after every resting breath she took, but all that noise could not make Nu feel anything. Her emotions, cold and calculating, were focused entirely on the mission. The machine creaked her head up and remarked "Removing data interference…" as the aura bolts stuck into her body shattered apart. Watching Shina stumble back and squirm while gripping her bleeding arm, Nu's eye glowed and she commented "Target's integrity decreasing rapidly…Enabling elimination protocol BC…"

Nu slowly floated over to Shina and wrenched her from the ground like a feather, lifting her into the air as the disembodied swords floated around Shina's body. With a dryly spoken command "Pierce…" those swords plunged themselves into Shina without a second of pause. Her shoulders, hips and legs became a pincushion to the doll's cruel design, and she stopped screaming right away.

Nu ripped the swords from Shina's body and the blood dripped down like a steady rain onto Nu's face and arms. "Target disabled…" If she had an ounce of pride, that would've been the moment she would express it.

Then, a bang went off, and Nu found her visor being blown clean away by a blast of energy. The machine slowly creaked it's cold, white eyes to the left and saw Noel weakly raising her Bolverk up, her eyes dripping with blood and her body impossibly sitting upright against the wall. Nu blinked twice then threw Shina to the ground like a rag doll, where she landed firmly on the back.

"Unit's life force still at 10%…Eliminating final possibilities of resistance…" Nu teleported straight over to Noel and bent down, plunging both her hands into the girl's wound cavity. The squishing of Noel's organs and flesh could be heard with the last of Shina's ability to do so, and unfortunately for her she still had the ability to see just clearly enough what would happen to poor Noel. Nu, pushing her arms left and right with all her strength, ripped Noel in two and flung both halves across the ground.

"Target…eliminated…" Nu then spun around, the front of her body drenched in Noel's blood, and teleported right back over to Shina. Shina's breaths were mixed with a gargle of blood coming from her flooded innards, and her throat was thick and heavy with the noxious liquid. All she could do was plead to the gods in her mind.

" _Please…d-don't let this be the end…"_

Nu raised an arm above her head and remarked "Mental facilities still functional…Possibility of resistance…Zero…" A rift opened up directly above Shina's neck, and a giant blade slowly pushed through it.

" _I'm begging anyone…! P-Please…save me!"_

"Elimination protocols shall stay activated…" Nu callously commented, and the blade plunged itself straight down at breakneck speeds. Closing her eyes shut to deny her own demise, Shina's mind screamed one last thing _"Alex…where are you?! I…"_ and then was silenced by the decapitation of her own head from her shoulders.

And, just like that, this carnival of carnage had reached it's inevitable, gruesome end. Nu watched as Shina's head rolled off into the cauldron, then dispelled the Murakumo Nox Nyctores to return to her caped form. Closing her eyes and turning around, she remarked dryly "Activating standby mode…Waiting for target…" Then her body shut down, to be undisturbed until the right moment arrived.

The site went silent for a time being, until a slow and almost praising clap echoed across the room. This clap came from a man who stood in an alcove not far above the cauldron grounds. He was a well-dressed fellow, having a fancy black suit with a white shirt underneath, short brown gloves, brown steel-toed shoes, and a pair of black trousers held up by two brown belts as part of his ensemble. A black fedora sat atop his short-cut bright green hair and gave shade to the closed eyes of this simple looking, lanky man. However, this man was far from simple.

"Bravo, bravo! What a splendid show that was! Would it be too much to ask for an encore?" The man spoke in a suave but mocking tone, expressing a sadistic love for the blood spilled on the battlefield today.

"As usual, your perverse depravity knows no end, Terumi." A docile, feminine voice called out to the man from the left. The man peered that way through a single open eye, which was gold with snake-like slits for his pupils, and saw a familiar gothic dressed girl standing on another alcove not too far for him. She held an black umbrella over her shoulder even in these dark indoors, and gazed upon the bloody sight with quiet disgust.

"And here comes the shitty vampire to shit on my enjoyment as usual." The man laid a hand onto the edge of his fedora and tipped it down, curling his lips into a wicked scowl before he took up a more disrespectful tone as he took pleasure in saying "Someday you need to lay in that coffin of yours and never wake up."

The girl cracked a tiny smile and brushed part of her hair aside, giving the man no attention from her glance as she remarked "And miss the chance to watch a snake like you squirm in my presence? You think too highly of yourself, Terumi."

"Says the bitch parading around like she owns the goddamn world." Terumi replied with a grumble in his voice. Then, he cracked a fanged smile and lifted his head up, peering down at the bloodied battlefield with both his eyes open. "Look at this be-au-tiful sight! I don't know what kinda SOB brought this shit to our world, but this is sure as hell the most exciting shit I've had to deal with for the last thousand loops!"

Lowering his hat a bit, the man mockingly copied Shina's voice for a little while "NO! I-I refuse to accept this!" and then reeled his head back farther than the human neck should be able to handle and broke into a crackling laughter. "What a goddamn riot! Could this day GET any better?!"

The girl closed her eyes and let out a scoff of cold disgust. "Your superficial lust for despair shall get you nowhere, Terumi. You are still just as trapped in this cycle as the rest of us are. You can take whatever pleasures you can, but as long as you walk this infernal maze they shall never amount to anything."

Terumi turned his head while it was still creaked back, his eyes widened in a fervent glare as he proclaimed "Tough talk coming from an Observer! I know it just _eats you up_ knowing you can't do shit about any of this!" The girl's smile faded, and she turned her body away from the vicious man's eyes and took upon a solemn pose.

"…You would be wise to still your tongue, Terumi. Have you not made yourself aware of the fact that the current Elemental Overlord has also come to this world along with this strange girl?"

Terumi's eyes tensed into a widened and slightly worried glare. He lifted his head up and remarked "What does it matter if that little shit's showing his face around here? That's just another tool to play around with if you ask me." The girl slowly shook her head and commented "Playing with a bull shall only leave your body a forgotten, bloody splatter on the floor, Terumi."

Then, with a slight smile the girl took a bit of delight in telling him "And as fun as it would be to watch you make a complete and utter fool of yourself…These weary eyes of mine have grown tired of such cruel slaughter for one loop. The time of the Calamity Trigger soon approaches…and I must take what little rest I can."

Terumi growled a little bit then glanced down at Nu. With a cruel smile he remarked "Well…I'll just have to have my share of fun… _ **next time**_ …Ehehehehe!" With his mind weaving wicked thoughts, Terumi turned around and walked off into the shadows, leaving the girl with the echoes of his vicious laughter.

The girl briefly closed her eyes and then took one final glance down at the corpses laid out. With a heavy sigh, she remarked with terse cruelty "What shall be your escape from this cruel maze, young one? Will it be the cruel hand of death…the unforgiving existence of despair…" Perhaps, with a tinge of hope in her voice, the girl stated "Or, maybe…you shall be the one to help cut through this endless illusion…" Then, in a wisp of wind, the girl vanished from the room without a trace.

 _Next Time: Enter the Grim Reaper_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: The Azure Rebel I: The Perfect Bait**

Alex floated in a sea of nothingness, his body fast asleep. His arms and legs hovered out, but every part of him seemed relaxed. Not even a nuke could wrench him from this rest. He hummed of pleasant dreams and his mouth curled into a wide smile.

Through this white void, a shadow draped in a priestess' robe with long, silky cloths draped over their shoulders approached Alex's floating body. _"It's time to wake up…"_ A delicate, feminine voice called out to Alex, but the boy simply mumbled to himself "Mmmm…not yet…just a little more mommy…"

"… _Mother? No, I'm not your mother."_ The voice spoke out, breaking her delicacy just a tiny bit. Alex turned onto his side and laid his hands under his cheek and yawned. The voice called out to him again, this time with a little impatience and a more youthful sound _"…Ok, YOU'RE the one who made such a big deal out of the time loops, and yet here you are sleeping through one of them!"_

Alex didn't respond yet again, and by then the figure cut all pretenses of looking divine and clenched her fists while stamping one foot on the ground. _"Honestly! Not even Sarajin was this lazy! Wake….UP!"_ With a childish yell, the figure slapped Alex in the back of his head and his eyes immediately jolted awake, snapping him out of the void he rested in and dragging him into the cold atmosphere of reality.

"What the heeeeeeeeeeeeeell?!" Alex was in for a rude awakening as his body went tumbling right off the tree branches he had been on. His body crashed through dozens of thicker branches and he let out a series of sharp "Ows" until the top of his skull pounded down against the surface like a sledgehammer, cracking the ground around him and scaring the birds off the now shaking trees.

Chirping would be heard in and out of his head for the next few seconds as slowly pressed his palms against the ground and flipped himself onto his feet, readjusting his blurred vision and laying a hand on the side of his now throbbing head. "Mother…fucker…" He bemoaned before looking up, finding himself in the middle of a forest.

Closing his eyes and continuing to rub his head, Alex subconsciously started moving his hand to the back of it, where there was a particularly sore spot throbbing thanks to his touch. Blinking twice, he glanced aside and slowly drew his hand away while remarking "That's strange…I didn't even hit the back of my head…"

With a sigh, Alex put his hands in his pockets and started to gather his thoughts. "Ok…what was I doing last?" It only took a moment for the images of Kagutsuchi's destruction to enter his mind. The energy in his body rose incredibly fast and he exclaimed "Shit! That's right!"

He spun around and screamed in a panic "HEY! SHINA! IF YOU'RE OUT THERE, SAY SOMETHING!" His voice bounced off the hollow trees and entered the deepest reaches of the forest. _"If she was around, she definitely would hear me…"_ At least, that's what he had hoped. A couple minutes pass with him cautiously standing his ground and tapping his foot, but there was no response.

"Swear to god if she's planning to jump me…" Though he complained about the possibility, deep down he kind of hoping that would happen. At least it'd be confirmation she was still around. With his taps getting faster, Alex tensely grit his teeth and flashes of what he last saw of Shina went through his mind.

"Like hell she's dead…!" He suddenly snarled out before making a sharp turn around, finding himself freezing in place as he looked past the trees and saw Kagutsuchi still standing. His mouth was agape for but a few seconds as he tried to wrap his mind around what was going on. Then, with a hand on the side of his neck he cricked the sore bones in his spine back into place and gave himself a bit of embarrassed reprimanding "Oh…right, the time loops."

Closing his eyes, Alex recalled grabbing onto the Gaia Temporis, the time-controlling stone in his right pocket, just moments before Kagutsuchi was destroyed. "It seems to have worked…" He said with a bit of surprise. Counting himself lucky and cracking a small grin, the boy let out a swift, piercing whistle and commented "Boy, thank god for my quick wits. Would've been screwed otherwise…"

He folded his arms against his chest and pondered "Still, Shina let go of my hand before the stone's power took effect…Could she still have been swept up in the time loop anyways?" He looked down at his right pocket and then plucked the black-gold clock embedded stone out of it. Giving it a spin in the air with a flick of the wrist then placing a pointer under it to keep it spinning in balance before his face, Alex remarked "If only you could talk…"

Pausing to think on his wishes, Alex knew the impossibility of his request and let out a sigh before pocketing the stone. Holding his hands out beside his hips, the boy commented "Shina has to be alive. That's what my gut's telling me." Though through his attempts at reassuring himself, he slowly grit his teeth into a scowl and mumbled "Not that it does me any damn good. I don't know where the hell she could be, and I don't have the damn artifact to go on for hints…Not that I could even use it…"

"…Hmmm…I guess I'll just head to Kagutsuchi and come up with a plan from there." Alex kicked his feet off the ground and rocketed straight out of the forest and towards the city. With arms stretched in front of him and a worried expression, he started thinking about Shina. _"I need to find her as soon as possible. Without me reigning her in she's probably goofing off trying to find some of the other BlazBlue characters. If I had to take a guess of who, it's more than likely Noel she'd try and find first."_

"… _Wonder if maybe I should take a shot at trying to find her first. Might be my best bet…or I could just go end up on a wild-goose chase. Yeah, that's what I want to do…"_ The boy rolled his eyes and murmured "I need a more concrete plan than that. Something that can for sure get Shina's attention…"

His mind wandered off to firing a fireball into the sky or flying around the city until she would notice him, but both led to the results of panic in the city and him getting attacked by the patrolling ships respectively. With a dull grin, he added on to his last remark "…WITHOUT causing a disturbance."

Pausing to look down at the city, Alex realized the scope he once praised was now nothing more than a massive detriment to his mission. Alex clenched his hand into a tight fist and shook it beside his face, grumbling in a frustrated tone "Of all the goddamn places…." before gritting his teeth into a scowl and declaring "When I find the person who hid all these pieces, I am SO going to shove each piece into his or her respective orifices!"

He did quickly realize though that he was wasting precious time bitching to no one but himself. "Haaaaaa…Alright Alex, maybe it's time to process some of that investigation nonsense Alpha went on about." The boy dug into the deepest recesses of his mind and repeated some of the Goomba's words with their gruff voice echoing in his mind "Even the most cautious criminals gravitate towards familiar places."

Alex opened his eyes and chuckled "Heh, the only thing criminal about her is her looks." He widened his eyes and with a blush in his cheeks whispered "N-Now why the hell did I say that…? I hope I'm not going nuts being by myself again…"

With a blank stare out into the distance while his cheeks stayed red, Alex murmured "…I'll start in Orient Town. If I'm REAAAALLY lucky, she'll have thought to check there for me." As he turned and descended for that part of Kagutsuchi, he thought _"This'd be so much easier if I could sense her power…"_

He quickly and quietly landed in the alleyway from before, then wasted no time in stepping out into the crowd of people gathered in the streets. He was bumped around at the shoulders quite a bit, with him letting out a flurry of annoyed remarks "Hey! Hey! Watch where you're going! Trying to smash me with that gut of yours fatso?!" His words didn't tend to reach anyone's ears considering how much everyone else was talking, at least until a pair of kids pushed him in the legs as they ran past them to get to their awaiting mother.

At that point he firmly glared at said mother and yelled to her "Hey lady, teach your kids some manners!" The woman replied with a scoff at the gall Alex had "They're just having fun!" to which the boy rolled his eyes and swung his arms up beside his leaned back head "Oh boo-frickin'-hoo, they can do that without almost knocking the crowd down like a set of bowling pins."

The woman quickly pressed her children's heads together in the act of covering their ears and said in a flabbergast tone "Asshole!" Alex gruffly responded "Bitch!" and then decided he was done with the argument and walked off.

Grumbling sarcastically "Yeeeeep…I was definitely MISSING OUT on taking part in an active community…What a load of bullshit" he then shook his head and tried to get his mind off what just happened as he approached the Thai restaurant from before. He stopped in front of the entrance and looked around. "A six foot tall blonde shouldn't be hard to find around here." He didn't waste too much time scanning the crowd with that in mind, and with a heavy sigh he pressed his chin against his chest and commented "Yeeep, knew it was a long shot."

As he reached his hands into his pockets this time, he felt a few pieces of paper crumpled up inside. With a curious perk of the brows, he pulled them out and unfurled the smaller ones first. "Oh yeah, I still have those bills on me…I'll save it for travel, since flying's out of the question here." Pocketing those dollars back in with one hand, he unraveled the other paper and saw he had kept the wanted poster for Ragna the Bloodedge on him.

"…Ragna the Bloodedge, huh?" As his mind was starting to churn some ideas, a loud and boisterous voice called out to him from behind "Hey! You!"

Turning around, Alex found himself lifting his head up to look into the eyes of a fuming man who looked as though one flex of his muscles would rip his shirt right off. His nostrils flared up like a plane's jets and if his face was any redder one would have to be concerned for his blood pressure. Dryly, Alex asked "Can I help you?"

The man sharply prodded Alex's forehead with his dirty pointer finger and exclaimed "Yeah! Were you giving my wife and kids shit earlier?!" With a blank expression Alex thought _"Ooooh, this must be the husband"_ before he brushed his hand out, cocked a coy smile, and told him "You must have me mistaken for all the other brown-haired kids in this part of town."

Displaying a surprising degree of common sense, the man grabbed Alex by his protruded wrist and exclaimed "Like hell! You're the only one with this glove on!" Alex nonchalantly looked at the glove and murmured "Huh, how about that." The man let go and swung his fist back, yelling to him "Maybe this'll teach you to not be a dick, ya punk!"

Alex simply started to turn around and turned the skin on the back of his head to iron, and once the man's punch connected with that the knuckles in his fist cracked and his bravado shattered. Dropping to his knees, the man let out a high-pitched series of cries while Alex strolled off and went back to looking at the poster.

"…You know, I think I can do something with this." He tucked the poster into his pocket and laid a hand on his chin, going into deep thought _"The NOL pretty much run Kagutsuchi, and Ragna the Bloodedge is on their most wanted list. If I catch and bring him up to their HQ, I could convince them to send out a message across Kagutsuchi that I had captured him. That'd probably grab Shina's attention and get her up to the HQ in no time."_

" _But that's assuming he's even here…"_ Alex spat out a quiet "Craaap…" upon realizing he didn't actually know what day it was. His ability to determine this wasn't helped by that man still crying in pain behind him. He glanced back and did feel a tiny bit guilty, so as someone ran past him he stopped them with a hand to the shoulder and remarked "Hey, that man could use some medical attention. There's a doctor named Litchi in town, right?"

"Yeah, sure! But what happened here?"

Alex quickly whipped up a sort-of lie with a shrug of the shoulders "Eh, dude bit off more he could chew and thought he could punch through an iron plate." Before the person ran off though, Alex asked him "By the way, what date is it?"

"Duh, it's New Year's Eve. Can't you see the decorations, man?" The person pointed up and then went to the aid of the man. Alex folded his arms together and looked towards the sun up in the sky "So it's about twelve hours ago…give or take. That means Ragna's already in the city and heading for the NOL HQ. So it'll actually be pretty easy to figure out his path and intercept him. Alright…lets do this!"

He was about to kick off the ground to fly when he remembered _"Oh wait…can't do that here."_ He planted his heels down and looked to the right, finding a staircase leading further into Kagutsuchi just around the corner. "Well…guess I should familiarize myself with the sights in case this whole thing goes FUBAR and I have to start over."

So for a little while he strolled through the tiers of Kagutsuchi, noticing that the sights weren't too oriental focused despite the city being in Thailand. There were some bountiful gardens, a park where people gathered to relax, and even a circus and museum. Each sector had it's own set of stores too, meaning that a person could easily just live in one part of Kagutsuchi and never go anywhere else if they wanted to.

" _A shame really, they'd be missing out on a lot if they did that…"_ Alex, after about an hour of walking around, lifted his head up and finally found himself where he wanted to be. A long metallic bridge that was connected to a sector that would eventually lead to the NOL HQ. The bridge was wide enough that dozens of people could cross without it being crowded, and it hung high above the docking area. It had a complex structure to it, requiring hundred of wires and gears along with one of the largest steam engines Alex had even seen just to keep it steady.

Glancing around, Alex didn't see any signs of his target at present. "It's too early for him to show up…But that's fine, I'm willing to wait." He closed his eyes and puts his hands in his pockets, walking towards one of the support trusses and turned around so he can lean his back against it. With a tiny smile on his face, the boy enjoyed the brisk breeze flowing through the air.

"A guy could get used to this…" It was rare for him to feel a sensation of relaxation, but just like every other time he got a chance to do this he quickly found himself distracted by concerns. Looking towards the sky, he thought _"I hope Shina's being careful out there…This place can be pretty dangerous. Especially with the likes of Terumi running around…"_

Closing his eyes and letting out a sigh, the boy murmured "She's gotten better, but she's still got a bunch of kinks to work out…Hmmm, maybe she'll be able to improve on her own. Hopefully it doesn't take long for us to deal with this. I'd rather not get involved with this world as much as possible…" After a pause he remarked "…I say as I'm about to use the main character as bait. Oh well, such is life."

For the next hour or so, Alex patiently stands around waiting for Ragna the Bloodedge to make his appearance. He was very positive in his assertion that the man would show up sometime. Thankfully, with his array of elements, there were plenty of ways to avoid boredom. In particular, he use a few embers to emulate a game of PONG above the palm of his glove. Anyone who gave him a curious glance during then was told that he was just using a form of Ars Magus and no one batted an eye afterwards.

Soon enough though, when Alex was looking up from his game, he cracked a wide smile and clutched his hand into a fist to disperse the embers. "Finally…" He whispered in a slightly devious tone. Walking along the bridge was a young adult man with spiky white hair, a vibrant red sleeved jacket with two long thin tails hanging from the back. Underneath that he wore a black shirt with three red belts, with some other belts covering his right arm. His hands were protected by black gloves, each one having a small red shell on the back that looked like they could open up. He wore baggy black pants, which Alex remembered were called a "hakama", along with a pair of steel-toed red boots.

Alex had to admire the balls the man had to walk so casually through the streets despite the red target on his back. Honestly though, if it wasn't for that very same target, the only things that would stand out is his white hair and the sword behind his waist. Pushing away from the side of the bridge, Alex slowly walked to the center of the road so he was standing right behind his target. With no regards for the amount of people in the area, he yelled out very cockily "Hey! Ragna the Bloodedge!"

The man took pause and let out a dry but irritated "Huh?" before turning himself around, looking around with his red and green eyes and having an unclear idea of just who had said his name. Mumbling under his breath "Must be hearing things…" Ragna was about ready to turn around when a pebble was swiftly flicked into his forehead. With a curt scowl the man winced and faced forward again, yelling in an abrasive tone "Alright smartass! If you have the balls to throw shit my way then come out and face me!"

Right away, the man's sight fixated itself towards Alex, who had a rather smug smile on his face as he waved his hand up beside his head and then flicked another pebble out from the side of his hip. Ragna swatted it aside with his hand and grit his teeth, mumbling in an impatient tone "What the hell do you want?"

Alex held his hands out beside his body and noticed the crowd of people staring at what was going down, some fear welling up in their eyes as they began to recognize Ragna's presence. The boy had to not address the matter for the sake of time and he quickly told Ragna "I'm here to fight you, Ragna the Bloodedge."

Ragna lowered his brows into a dull glare and bluntly mocked the boy "You? Fight me? Pffft, yeah right kid. Why don't you turn around and go home before mommy wonders where you are." Alex sighed and shook his head a little bit. "Tsk tsk…You know, I figured you'd be a little more perceptive than that, Ragna. After all, why else would I be here?"

Uncaringly, Ragna responded "I don't know…Because you're some dumbass kid who thinks you'll look cool taking on the big, bad Grim Reaper?" Alex didn't flinch despite the scathing mockery and cracked his knuckles in front of his chest. With a smirk of brimming arrogance, he swung his right arm out and began to draw his sword from a swirling fire. Holding it behind his head as it burned bright, Alex exclaimed "I'm a bounty hunter! And I'm going to claim the prize on your head!"

For a moment, Ragna's brows perked up in interest. Then his lips curled into a cocky smile of his own and he began to reach for the handle of his sword. "So you're not some common ass punk. You know how to use an Armagus…" He drew his sword, which had a thick white curved blade with a black-red handle that looked like an ammo-less rifle, and grasped it in a back-handed manner while hunching over into a battle-ready stance. "But you're stupid if you think you can beat me."

The crowd at this point knew better than to stick around and scrambled away to both sides of the bridge, with Alex happily remarking in regards to Ragna's gruff arrogance "I'm not gonna just beat you. I'm going to wrap you up, put a bow on your head, and give you to the NOL as a nice after Christmas present." Ragna scoffed and remarked "Whatever, it's your funeral kid."

The man swiped his sword at the ground while declaring "DEAD SPIKE!" and a wave of darkness shaped like a monstrous head swam out towards Alex. The boy pushed forward and with sword in both hands he cut right through the darkness. Ragna jumped forward and swung his sword down to clash with Alex's, with sparks flying out from their blades as Alex wrenched his away and stepped back.

Ragna kept swinging his sword at Alex a few more times, and the boy parried the blows save the last one which he locked blades with. Then Alex stepped on Ragna's right foot, causing him to grunt and thrust his left fist out while it was covered in a misty darkness. Alex swung his body to the left and only was brushed by the darkness. He slipped his left hand past the back of his blade and threw a series of punches into Ragna's face.

It came to an end when Ragna grabbed onto Alex's bare knuckles and dragged his sword away from the boy's, managing a clean cut on the underside of Alex's arm. The boy flinched and hopped back as Ragna swung his sword down in both hands, bringing with him a fanged arch of darkness. Ragna's attack cracked and shook the bridge, but the force he put in was enough to tire him for a moment.

Alex flipped his arm around and saw a trickle of blood coming out of his wound. Looking at Ragna and clenching his fist tightly, the boy heated the sides of the scar to cauterize it and grinned. "This'll be more fun than I thought…" The grin of enjoyment he had wasn't unnoticed by Ragna, who glared him straight on and exclaimed "That was your only warning kid! Be thankful I didn't cut off your whole arm!"

Alex smirked and decided to agitate Ragna by saying "Yeah, guess you wouldn't want someone else to suffer the same fate as you, huh?" The man's eyes flared open and he yelled in anger and confusion "The hell'd you just say?!"

"Of course…I could just be going out on a _**limb**_ here…" Alex was perhaps enjoying himself a little TOO much, but his bullheadedness still got the desired result out of Ragna as the man recklessly rushed him and sliced his sword diagonally down at Alex's left shoulder while yelling "Bastard!"

Alex swung the dull edge of his blade up over his shoulder to block Ragna's blade, then met the man's bitter glare head-on as he grit his teeth and demanded "You're not some normal bounty hunter. How the HELL could you possibly know about that?!" Alex smiled and told him "What can I say? I've done my research."

"Bullshit!"

Ragna brought his right foot up to try and kick Alex in the gut, but the boy did the same and the two ended up pressing their soles together to push each other further apart. Ragna pulled his sword away and turned his back to Alex, swinging the blade over his shoulder in a reverse grip and stabbing it downward while two intertwining maws of darkness stabbed out.

Alex hopped back but Ragna quickly raised the hilt of his sword up and uppercutted it into Alex's chin to knock him into the air. Ragna hopped up and spun around pretty fast, re-holstering his sword and following through with an uppercut from his left fist into Alex's chin to halt his ability to counterattack. Ragna continued to rise and spin until he could deliver the end of his left heel into the top of Alex's head to send him hurtling back into the ground.

Alex crash landed on his feet and immediately rubbed the top of his head, but wouldn't get much chance to rest as Ragna was coming down with his sword surrounded in darkness in front of him. Alex sprinted underneath him and spun around the moment he landed, thrusting his right hand out to blast Ragna's back with a few strings of lightning from his finger tips. The lightning singed through his clothes and burned the skin.

Ragna stood up and turned around, yelling in disbelief "What the hell?! You can shoot lightning too?!" Alex stood sideways and held his sword out in both hands before replying "What can I say? I'm a man of many talents!" Ragna arched his brows into a glare and growled "Yeah, well I got a few tricks up my sleeve too!"

"Ooooooh, are they under the sleeve where you lost your arm?" Alex raised and wiggled his fingers close out from his face while faking awe. Ragna's eyes flared open and he re-holstered his blade, quickly rushing at Alex while thrusting his darkness covered left fist and yelling "HELL'S FANG!" The boy hopped back with a cocky smile on his face, followed by him casually holding his sword up to block Ragna swinging his right fist up to send a claw of darkness after him from the ground.

Alex found his heels pressed against the side of the bridge, and Ragna was already leaping for an attack to knock him right off. _"Not going to show my flight yet, so…"_ Alex quickly slammed his left hand on the small fence behind him and snapped of a bit of the thick wiring helping with suspension, launching them right at Ragna and wrapping them around his gut. "Oh what now?!" He exclaimed as some of those wires also wrapped around his wrists and kept his arms held behind his head.

Alex patted the dull back of his blade against his right shoulder and shrugged the other arm out, remarking in a humored tone "So…I'm not just some kid, am I now?" Ragna grit his teeth and yelled "SHUT UP!" before applying all the strength in his arms against the wires. To Alex's surprise, Ragna snapped through the wires and brought his sword down to his gut to cut through the ones around his waist.

Ragna landed and Alex quickly swung his sword out to halt his blade from coming down on him. The two locked blades, with Ragna's expression one of pure rage as he snarled out to the boy "You're in way over your head! Get it through your thick skull!" Alex grunted to hold back Ragna's blade while telling him "T-Tsk…! I know exactly what I'm getting myself into! You're the big dumbass here, DUMBASS!"

Alex looked back again and in the span of a second leaped and let Ragna's force carry his bent back feet 'til they were against the fence. He then launched a blast of fire from his shoes that propelled him forward, dragging Ragna's body along the ground.

"Trrrrrrhh!" Ragna stood his ground for just a few seconds until he could feel his spine bending back, by then he pulled away from Alex by hopping to the left, and in the one moment available to him he punched the boy in the back with a darkness wrapped fist. Alex broke his fall with a swift burst of wind and broke into a roll a few feet along the ground. He turned around and got to his feet right as Ragna fired off another Dead Spike.

The boy swung his blade out and pressurized air sliced through the center of the darkness, with Ragna cutting through the air as he rushed at Alex and swung his blade out. The weapon went through a brief transformation as the handle extended out and the blade pivoted along a mechanical wheel until it was horizontal and exuding an energy as thick and red as actual blood that was also taking the shape of a jagged scythe blade.

When the scythe lashed out against Alex's blade, it splashed some of that energy out in the form of a massive crescent wave that consumed Alex's body. The boy felt something corporeal draining from his body for the few moments that attack lasted, and in retaliation to this odd sensation he swung his left fist out and struck Ragna dead center in the face. The man was sent tumbling back, with his head being the first part to impact the ground before he went off.

Alex paused and laid a hand against his chest. His blood flow and heart-rate was normal…Well, at least as normal as it could be in the heat of battle. Clenching his fingers to grip the shirt, the boy remarked "Right, his Drive ability is Soul Eater…He's draining my soul to get some energy back." Alex swung his sword out and remarked a little more seriously than he had been taking things so far "I need to keep an eye on that…"

As Ragna got to his feet ready to keep fighting, the bridge started to shake. The two noticed that both halves were rising up in a slant. Alex glanced back and saw a carrier ship slowly flying towards the bridge. Alex and Ragna's legs began to spread, and the boy leaned forward while keeping his balance to give Ragna a smirk while telling him "Looks like you're going to be taking a fall unless you get off!"

Ragna growled and gripped his sword, yelling out to him "The only one taking a fall…" before breaking into a run on the top of rising right half and ending his comment with pure aggression "IS YOU!" He grabbed his sword in both hands and leapt at Alex once the bridge stabilized upright. The boy hopped back as the darkness covered sword smashed the ground, and then he rammed his right elbow towards Ragna's face while coating it in electricity.

Ragna grabbed the elbow in his left hand and counteracted the electricity with a flare of darkness from his palm. He then held on by manifesting the darkness into a condensed claw that dug it's tips into the boy's skin. Alex quickly coated his arm in steel so he could rip his arm away without permanent scarring to the skin.

The ship had almost finished passing by at this point, which means the bridge would lower and it'd be easier for Alex to attack. However, in the moment he paused to consider his circumstances, the boy was struck in the gut by a firm punch from Ragna's right fist. Winded from that punch, Alex lunged forward and ultimately set his body up for Ragna to make a short hop and deliver a hard roundhouse kick to the side of his face, knocking him off the side of the bridge and sending him plummeting towards the docks.

Alex spun around and looked up at Ragna, who was already cockily sheathing his sword and probably mumbling something insulting. The boy raised his brows and remarked "Well, if we're going to go this far…" before flicking his right wrist out and launching a thick vine out from it. It flew up and wrapped itself around Ragna's gut, and with a hard tug Alex dragged the man past the gap left in the bridge and sent him hurtling down after him.

Alex pulled the vine off of Ragna and watched as he plummeted right by him. Ragna glared at him and yelled in a panic "Oh you freaking suck!" The boy shrugged his shoulders and then spun around so his feet would be ready for the landing. Ragna blabbered on "Shit shit shit SHIT SHIT!" and then did the same thing. His impact was naturally harder than Alex's, as he didn't have the ability to fly, but at the same time Ragna only bent down slightly once he hit the ground and seemed to not be in too much pain.

The boy tapped his sword on his right shoulder and looked around. The area was empty, likely because the crowd ran off from the commotion going on above. Then, he watched as Ragna stood upright while groaning "Ouch…that stun like a BITCH!" It wasn't long after when the man was throwing a sharp glare back at Alex. The boy could feel a killing intent coming from Ragna now, and it actually made his spine tingle as though inflicted with a hellish frost.

"So…you're getting serious now, aren't you?" Alex remarked. Ragna turned towards Alex and remarked "I don't know who the hell you are, but you're definitely not a bounty hunter. Hell, I'm starting to think you're not even human. And your body…it reeks of blood."

"Only the blood of evil I've slain, I can assure you." Alex replied nonchalantly. Ragna scoffed and his expression flared with determination. "You're not fooling anyone with that bullshit. Tsk, I didn't want to have to use this, but you've given me no choice. I'll show you just why they call me the 'Grim Reaper'…"

The man swung his right hand up in front of his face so the back of it was pointed towards Alex. "Restriction 666 released…" The mark on his glove opened up, and red energy and darkness began to vent out like a chaotic geyser. "Dimensional Interference Field Deployed!" Ragna clenched his fist tightly as the energy lashed out across his body, surrounding him in a powerful dark aura. Alex's body began to sweat, as if the presence of a thousand demonic souls felt like they were swirling around him like a tornado.

"BlazBlue, ACTIVATE!" When Ragna yelled that out, a strange giant crimson symbol made up of shattered fangs and twisted membranes of darkness surrounded his body for just a moment. The darkness compressed around his body like a hard shadow projected behind himself, and some of it fluttered off his back in the form of violet wisps. Alex glared at Ragna as the power he felt was exactly the same as the Black Beast's. The man grit his teeth and grabbed onto his blade, swinging it in front of his waist and exclaiming "It's time you learned…of the power of the Azure!"

 _Next Time: Sleeping Devil_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The Azure Rebel II: Black Onslaught**

Alex stared straight ahead at Ragna as he made good on his title with the cold and hollow power surrounding his body. The boy clenched his sword tightly in one hand and thrust it forth at his opponent. "You think that Azure of yours can scare me? This darkness is nothing compared to some of the shit I've been through." He boasted without his body quivering even an inch. Ragna lowered his brows in the biggest not-giving-a-shit manner possible before remarking "You'll regret acting so brave soon enough."

Alex's head perked up confidently with a smirk, and started to move his fingers onto the seven triggers on his sword. "Like I said…I'm a man of many talents. Lemme show you my greatest one!" He pulled them all at once and a golden fire shot forth from the tip of the blade and consumed his body whole. Ragna swung his sword in a backhanded manner behind himself and with teeth grit murmured "Shit…so he wasn't going all-out either?!"

The golden flames splashed around at the base of the pillar surrounding Alex's body until his feathery golden-red wings swung them all away with a single flap. The boy swung his sword beside himself and glared at Ragna with his golden eyes. The man kept his offensive position up but his eyes widened in surprise. "Never felt this kind of power before. Shit…you're a real monster, aren't you?"

"Monster? No…I am the Elemental Overlord!" Alex declared in a grandiose tone. Ragna's brows arched downward and he was clearly done taking the boy seriously as he mentioned "Elemental Overlord? Seriously? …I take back what I said, you're just some loon who must've escaped an insane asylum."

Alex narrowed his eyelids into a glaring squint and grumbled "Can we fight already? Ultimately you're going to be the one to lose." Ragna smirked and said "Yeeeep, you're definitely insane." The boy closed his eyelids all the way and tensed his lips into a wide frown. Following that with a sigh, he raised his left hand up as it was charged with raw golden fire and then launched a beam as big as Ragna's body.

The fire scathed the dock, leaving it hot white in it's wake. Ragna gripped his sword tightly in both hands and swung it out with a thick crescent of darkness left in the air as he slashed through the center of the beam. The flames divided in two diagonally and the area trembled, with Ragna letting out a powerful roar as he cleaved the beam straight through with pure power.

Ragna's defense left his sword swung out beside his now open body, and Alex charged right ahead and got directly in front of him in a second while already in mid-swing for a punch. Ragna just managed to get his sword out to defend himself, but Alex was continuing to push forward with all his momentum and forced him along the ground.

"Grrrrraaaaaaaah!" Ragna's eyes glowed bright and he dragged a vein-y black and red darkness into his left hand to form a sharp, four-pronged claw that he lashed out towards Alex's face. The boy smirked and thought _"Yeah, not going to happen Ragna. My shields can-"_

His haughtiness would become humility right away, as the tips of those claws dug into a wispy green shield that surrounded Alex's body and in a matter of milliseconds managed to slash through as though it had the delicacy of rice paper. Alex widened his eyes as the claws were mere centimeters from gouging them out, and so with a pull back of his fist he fired a burst of air to put some great distance between them.

Alex leaned forward slightly as the green shield shattered in front of him, and then he raised a hand to his face and felt a phantom pain in his eyes. _"What the hell was that?! Does his 'Soul Eater' work on my shields too?! Wait, no…he didn't absorb energy off that, he straight-up ripped through them!"_

"Not so tough now, are you?" Ragna roughly remarked before he swung his sword at the ground and fired a much large Dead Spike than usual. Alex growled "You just got lucky you bastard!" and then gnashed his sword against the air to send a violent web of electricity lashing out across the docks. The Dead Spike was pierced through along with a few of the nearby buildings and the floor, and Ragna ended up defending his chest with the blunt edge of his blade. However, the sides of his body were punctured instead.

Ragna grit his teeth and leapt into the chaos, swinging his sword in rapid and broad strokes to repel the electricity until he landed right in front of Alex and took a stab at his chest. The boy swung his sword upward to wrench Ragna's weapon away from his grasp, and the Grim Reaper retaliated by thrusting his left fist at Alex's face. The boy caught the punch and the darkness dispelled itself from his opponent's hand.

Then Ragna thrust his other hand up and smashed the front of Alex's body with a wave of darkness. A blue colored shield appeared around Alex for just the moment it was broken through by Ragna's attack. The boy's eyes widened and he wound up coughing some saliva. Alex quickly grit his teeth and uppercut Ragna straight in the bottom of his jaw to send him flying away. The boy then wiped his chin clean with his glove and thought _"It's not the Soul Eater…It's the energy of the Boundary he's drawing on that's breaking through my shields. Just like what happened with Subspace…"_

Alex swung his arms out and the ground around him formed four large bulges. "Not like that bastard's going to beat me with that advantage!" He arrogantly proclaimed before thrusting his arms skyward. The bulges pulled away from the ground in the form of long steel pillars that homed right in towards Ragna. However, Alex's earlier attack had given the Grim Reaper the chance to pluck his sword from the air and slice at the pillars.

Even as they split, Alex kept swinging his hands back and forth to guide the splits around so they could attack Ragna from behind. The Grim Reaper simply spun around and with his sword coated in darkness smashed them apart. At that point Alex clenched his right fist tightly and turned the remaining steel to diamond, merging the pillars together at the center into a giant fist at the top and smashing it into Ragna's stomach.

With the intent to push Ragna into the roof of the docks, Alex was thoroughly confident that his opponent could not break diamond. And yet again, the world would decide to feed the boy a thick serving of humble pie as Ragna grasped his sword in both hands and turned it into a scythe. "N-Not…going to lose…TO YOU!" He grunted, his weapon consumed with darkness just a moment later, making it take on the appearance of a devilish wing.

Before his back slammed against the ceiling, Ragna swung his scythe out and initially sliced through the diamond fist. Then, from the tip of his blade a wave of energy grinded through the rest of the pillar and turned the diamonds to a sparkling dust. Alex widened his eyes but quickly sliced the projectile in two. Growling with a rising anger inside of him, Alex swung his blade out beside his body and wreathed it in spirals of flame.

"Will you just get knocked out already?!" He declared before swinging his sword up and firing a whirlwind of flames straight up. The Grim Reaper clenched his teeth and with scythe still active he threw his weapon straight out, keeping it rotating at blistering speeds so it can rip apart the fire with ease. Alex swung his sword to the right to deflect the scythe and cause it to become planted in the ground.

Ragna dropped down with both his hands pulled back wrapped in darkness, which he then brought down like a hammer on top of Alex's head, shattering the top of his white shield and making his knees give way. The boy gasped for a little bit and then clenched his teeth tightly, pushing forth waves of fire from his aura before he roared and lunged both his fists into Ragna's gut.

A shockwave cracked through the ground as Ragna was launched straight back, his body getting stuck against the side of a building. He pulled himself out but Alex pulled the splints of metal from the wall and wrapped them around Ragna's arms and legs to hold him back. The boy stepped forward nice and slow with his hand held up, remarking to the Grim Reaper "Seriously, just give it a rest already!"

He jerked his hand left and right, spreading Ragna's limbs apart so far that he was beginning to strain the muscles. Ragna's body broke into a sweat and he groaned in pain. Alex stayed twenty feet away, telling him bluntly "There's something I have to do, and you're the key to getting it done!" Ragna defiantly raised his hand and yelled out at Alex "W-Well I have something to do as well! And it's sure as shit more important than yours! Now. Get. OFF OF ME!"

Ragna pooled all his strength in his right arm and darkness devoured it like a cancer, with some of it even spreading to the side of his face and leaving the whites of his eyes a hollow black. The mass on his arm had now expanded enough to allow him to break free of his binds with ease, and he then thrust his open claw out to fire a blast of darkness straight at Alex. The boy drew his sword and slashed out at the blast while his eyes flared open with impatience.

Ragna broke out of the rest of his bindings in the time Alex's focus went away, and he quickly faced his weapon and ran towards it. The boy dispelled his sword and leaped into the air, coating his leg in electricity and diving straight down at his opponent. Ragna leaped forward in a dive, just barely avoiding the streams of electricity that shot out from Alex's impact. The man then grabbed the handle of his weapon and ripped it out while making sure he'd land already rolling.

He then spun around and took the darkness out of his body and into his blade, slicing a few waves of energy at Alex while standing back up. Alex managed to cut through them all with blinding speed and held his sword horizontally beside his hip, preparing to charge it with fire. Ragna hunched over and held his sword in a backhanded grip behind his head. The emblem from before briefly appeared around his body before he charged straight at Alex while letting out a furious growl "CARNAGE…!"

When the two were directly before each other fierce glares were exchanged, and Alex began to swing his blade out towards Ragna's gut. However, the Grim Reaper brought his sword down in front of him, smacking the blunt tip of Alex's blade and not only cracking the boy's wrist but also breaking the fire off from the weapon. Alex grit his teeth and was ready to retaliate with a straight punch to the man's face with his other hand, but Ragna was not yet done with his assault.

He quickly spun around, gathering in the darkness into a cohesive sphere behind his once still position. He smashed into it with the decapitating force of a guillotine and while swinging his sword behind his back he fired off a massive bloody blast that was intertwined like a pair of scissor blades. In fact, that must've been intentional as he yelled out "SCISSORS!" as the energy ripped through Alex's yellow shield and dug into his gut and hips.

The boy found himself launched back a few feet with pain writhing through his lower body. As he landed, he quickly held his arm across the source of the pain and felt blood seeping across the top of his limb, caking the hairs and goosebumps that perked up across it. Alex panted and slowly cauterized the wound with fire, putting a much higher degree of heat onto the top of his arm to blacken the blood and turn it all to a crimson ash.

Even in the midst of healing himself, the boy's stomach churned in disgust and pain at the severity of the wound. _"I-I haven't been wounded that deeply in a long time…Not since…"_ The demonic cackle of the former Dark King echoed in his mind and made his eyes widen in a seething rage. He glared straight at Ragna, who mocked him by sheathing his sword and stating "That's what you get for pursuing a criminal, idiot."

"Shut up…You haven't won yet." Alex quietly snarled out to Ragna. The Grim Reaper lowered his head and placed a hand on the side of it before remarking "Just how stupid are you? You're clearly not packing any healing Ars Magus, and sealing a scar that massive isn't going to help you for long."

Alex swung his sword out and glared at Ragna, the shadows cast under his brows adding a ferocity he hadn't yet shown. "Fuck you…You didn't even strike any of my organs." Ragna remarked in a gruff tone "Be thankful I DIDN'T. Now get out of here and leave me alone. I got bigger fish to fry than you, punk."

He was starting to turn away when Alex swung his left fingers up and made a steel wall erupt in Ragna's way. The man glanced over his shoulder uncaringly and sighed. "Fine, guess you have a death wish." He turned all the way back and brushed the sides of his hair, then he grabbed the handle of his sword and swung it at the ground to launch a Dead Spike at Alex.

The boy grabbed the front of it and wasted no time in freezing it over instantaneously, clenching his fingers into the solidified form to shatter it. Ragna was already leaping at him with his right leg swinging in an arc while shrouded in fog darkness. Alex cared not for the attack and swung his hand up to grab Ragna around the ankles, where he then jerked back and slammed him face-first against the ground.

"GAAAAH!" Ragna grunted before he rolled away from Alex's attempt to stab him through the chest. Alex pierced through the whole floor like it was thin as butter and raised his head up to glare at the Grim Reaper, his aura roaring like a forest wildfire. The moment Ragna got up, Alex sliced part of the ground up and sent shards of metal shrapnel right through the Grim Reaper's body.

He started bleeding through those tiny wounds and hunched over, remarking in surprise "Finally decided to cut the crap, huh?" Alex swung his sword out and exclaimed "I don't care if you're the hero of this world! Like hell I'll let your arrogant ass get in my way!" He charged at Ragna, who only got a second to swing his sword up to block Alex's flurry of seven different colored slashes.

With eyes wide, Ragna blurted out "What the hell are you talking about?! You're the arrogant one here!" Alex dispelled his sword and smashed the iron plate on the back of his glove into the blunt edge of Ragna's blade as he tried a counterattack. Flames lashed out from his body as his energy was going out of control from his rage.

"Well I'm still alive, so frankly I think I've earned the right!" Alex yelled out as he swung his left hand at Ragna's neck. The man raised his sword up and the tip of the blade cut through a brown shield and drew blood straight up the boy's palm, forcing him to retreat, but not without kicking his right foot and nailing Ragna in the chin.

The man lurched his head back for but a moment and was swift to assail Alex with a darkness covered punch to the face that shattered through his misty-blue shield. The boy grit his teeth and his face trembled from the resistance he put up against Ragna's knuckles. The Grim Reaper exclaimed "Oh boo-hoo, don't give me your sob story!" and then stretched his fingers out ready to turn the darkness into a claw.

Alex stabbed his now sharp, steel covered elbow into the underside of Ragna's arm to force it away, then he wrenched it out and covered his fist in flames. As he reeled it back he screamed to the Grim Reaper "I've seen the despair of Hell itself! So if you think some punk-ass criminal like you is going to be the end of me, you're sorely _**MISTAKEN**_!" He punched Ragna in the face as hard as he wanted to, burying those knuckles deep into the man's skin and drawing blood from the nose before he's fired back and sent tumbling against the ground.

It didn't take very long for Ragna to get up just a few feet from being sent flying off the edge, but he clearly felt the weight of Alex's blow. He bent over slightly and rubbed the blood trickling down to his chin, gritting his teeth and remarking "S-Shit…You're really pushing me here." Alex sprinted right at Ragna without a moment's break, while the man raised his right hand up and turned it into a blood red claw. With a roar, Ragna swung that arm down and intercepted Alex before he had the chance to attack, slicing downward through the red shield and leave the wisps as nothing more than ribbons in the air.

Alex's body felt stunned for just a moment, and then blood poured out of the cauterized wound and filled his nerves with a screeching, maddening pain. He hunched over and laid a hand on his reopened wound to seal it back up, while Ragna swung his sword in front of his body and began transforming it into a scythe. "I'll show you a damnation worse than Hell. Where you're going…there is only darkness." He spoke soft and grimly to his foe as the darkness wrapped around his very being in a gruesome black aura, with that strange symbol appearing behind him in a bright crimson glow.

Bathed in the hollowness befitting his title, Ragna began to swing his scythe back for an onslaught that Alex knew would annihilate even his soul. There was no doubt in the boy's mind that Ragna wasn't going to fake this out at the last second. His killing intent burned through the darkness so naturally that it was frightening to experience. But Alex did not look death in the face with fear. Instead he slanted his eyebrows and grumbled as though the next decision he'd make was more a bother than something done out of desperation.

" _I didn't want to do something like this…but if I don't knock him out this way, I'm going to die and have to start this whole time loop over again. Whatever, he's had this coming!"_ With a swift reassuring towards himself, Alex suddenly stood up and covered Ragna's mouth with his right palm. Then, before the scythe could come close to his body, Alex forcibly drew breath out of Ragna's body.

He only did it just long enough for Ragna to lose the strength necessary to hold onto his scythe, and once he heard it clinking on the ground he pulled the arm away instantly and watched as the darkness around the Grim Reaper disappeared. Ragna's eyelids began to close against his will, with him murmuring as his body gave way "What…the hell…." He collapsed onto the ground unconscious, and no longer could Alex feel the oppressive power of the Black Beast.

The boy closed his eyes and dispelled his form, letting out a light sigh and murmuring "Shouldn't have permanently damaged his brain with that stunt…" He looked down at Ragna and swung his right pointer finger out. He pulled ropes of steel from the ground and used them to nudge Ragna's limbs around so his knees would be bent back and his arms would be wrapped against his hips. He tied up the back of the ropes into tight knots, ensuring he wouldn't break free.

Alex's arm limply feel beside his hip, and with a deep sigh he pulled his head back and felt his vision blurring "Shit, I feel so drained now…What a pain in the ass that was." He then glanced down at his lower body and lifted the edge of his ripped, bloody shirt up. After a few seconds he pushed it against his skin. The harder he pressed, the more his face and eyes tensed up. His wound was to blame.

"…Guess I'll patch that up. Mmm…" Alex slowly looked around and saw a wide but secluded area between two buildings. Rubbing the back of his head, the boy grumbled "Hate having to take a break, but I shouldn't walk around town looking like this. Though, with all the commotion I caused…"

"Tsk…whatever. Better not to half-ass shit…" With hesitance, Alex picked up Ragna's restrained body and carried it out of the way. He then sat himself down and remarked "Hopefully everyone will just return to their normal activities. Just in case though…" He casually swung his left arm under his shoulder and summoned a glass wall that would perfectly mimic this place when it was empty yet still allow him to look outside just in case Shina were to wander by.

"There…peace and quiet." Alex let out one last sigh as he started to take his shirt off. He draped it over his right arm and held the left one out. His head felt dizzy as he pulled up part of the floor and shaped it into a small bucket, but he closed his eyes and let his mind flow with the elements to relieve some of the pain. Then he filled the bucket with water and leaned over it to soak his shirt inside.

"Wow, it's really been a while since I had to rough it like this." Alex wringed the blood out and the water became red like wine. He then pulled it up and squeezed it harder to get rid of the water. Retracting the 'bucket' into the ground, Alex flapped the open shirt in the air while summoning a warm updraft to dry it off. Finally, he laid the shirt onto his lap and spread his fingers above the damaged part.

"Ok…in and out, in and out. You've done this plenty of times before Alex…" Then, with the fidelity of a spider, Alex pressed his fingers against the cloth and started to knit a red silk from his fingertips into the shirt. He kept at this for a while with a fascinating degree of concentration. At this time, he was like a completely different person, and was also blissfully unaware of the smile he had as he fixed this shirt up.

A half-hour passed by like the morning breeze, and he was just about done with his work when Ragna start mumbling awake. The boy opened his eyes and turned his head, watching as the man lifted his chin off the ground and moaned tiredly "Shit…What the hell happened…?" He immediately caught on to the fact that he in a bit of a 'bind', so to say, and started to wiggle himself around.

"Oh goddamn it, are you kidding me?!" All his efforts amounted to was getting him to roll left and right a couple feet. Alex sighed and as he put his shirt back on told him calmly "I wouldn't bother. Those ropes are too tough in your current state."

Ragna laid on his gut and wiggled a little. With limited movement he could only express his anger with a wide scowl and barely hopping off the ground. "First you sucked the air out of me, then you tied me up like I'm your goddamn prey! I swear, when I get out of these, I'm going to kick your ass so goddamn hard, you'll be kissing the moon!"

"Can you just calm down?" Alex whispered while lifting his repaired shirt up and placing a hand near the wound. He carefully peeled the hardened blood off, making Ragna widen his eyes as he could hear the boy's squishy flesh move around. "Eaaaaaugh! You're a real freaky kid, you know that?!" Ragna tried his best to look away.

Alex rolled his eyes while raising his head up a little. Once he had removed the blood, the scar underneath was throbbing bright red. Quickly, he laid his hand atop the edge of the scar and applied a layer of aloe vera over it to stop the burning. He had to hold it in place so it wouldn't be absorbed into his innards. Then he reached into his left pocket and pulled out Ragna's wanted poster, stretching it out and converting the material into a thick bandage that he was able to cover the wound with after pulling the aloe vera off.

"Aaaaand…There we go." Alex clapped his hands to a job well done, while Ragna gave him a deeply uninterested glare and said swiftly and sarcastically "Great. Good for you…NOW can you let me go?"

"My goal was to capture you…Why the hell would I do that?" Alex smirked and shook his head, puzzled by Ragna's remarkably bold request. The man grit his teeth and yelled out "Really?! Cause from where I'm standing, you were trying to KILL ME!"

"Pot. Kettle. Black. Any of that ring a bell?" Alex's humored remark was followed by him looking smugly towards Ragna and mentioning "YOU activated the Azure Grimoire. Not my fault shit escalated as much as it did."

"Oh! DON'T even try and pin this on me. YOU attacked me right out of the goddamn blue!" Ragna violently wiggled his bound body forward a couple inches, and Alex continued to keep his cool while replying "Remind me again just who the criminal is here?"

"Tsk…Yeah, well…I have my doubts about your so-called innocence, punk." Ragna mumbled out. Alex shrugged and whipped a hand in front of his body, making a bright red apple appear in his palm. Before he took a bite of it he mentioned "Whatever, Ragna the Edgelord. Point of the matter is that you're the one who's tied up, not me. If you want to get through this without anymore trouble, then just shut up and wait it out. I assure you, you're not going to be executed on my watch."

"Bloodedge! It's Ragna the BLOODEDGE!" Ragna could've probably chosen a better thing to bitch about. Alex shook his head and started eating his apple. As the boy clearly salivated over the juiciness of this fruit, Ragna looked up at him and his stomach started to growl. Alex glanced at him and the Grim Reaper grimaced with an awkward smile.

"…A-Any chance you can…hand me an apple?" Ragna barely put up a resistance against his growling stomach, and in turn didn't put any effort into even saying 'please'. Nevertheless, Alex closed his eyes and with his cheeks puffed from chewing he mumbled "Yeah sure. Knock yourself out." He held his right hand out and spawned another apple, hovering it over to the front of Ragna's mouth.

The Grim Reaper suspected that Alex would attempt foul play, and at first growled at the apple. Then his stomach gargled some more and he grumbled "Ghhh…Ok, ok, just shut up already!" and then took a huge bite into the apple. When he finished chewing, he actually lightened up a bit and gave out a compliment "Shit, this isn't half-bad!"

He kept chewing at the apple as Alex slowly spun it around, and the boy mentioned to him "See? If you had just surrendered sooner, we could've skipped right to this part." He then finished what he wanted to off the apple and flicked the core away. Ragna scowled and exclaimed "Oh screw you! No matter how good your fruit is, it's not worth being your goddamn prisoner!"

Alex ignored Ragna and leaned his arms behind his head. The Grim Reaper kept growling for a bit, but recognized the futility of his plan and let out a frustrated sigh. "Son of a…Ok fine! Can you at LEAST tell me what the hell you're even doing this for?" The boy slowly lied on the ground, trying his hardest not to force his wound open, and let out a relaxed yawn.

"Frankly…that's none of your business." Alex bluntly replied, which only served to upset Ragna further as he proclaimed "Don't give me that shit! You had no problem running your mouth over pointless nonsense earlier, but when I ask for a few goddamn answers you're just like…" The man broke into a scarily accurate posh, feminine voice for most of his remaining sentence "'Oh blah blah blah Ragna, don't question things you can't understand, blah blah blah' And that's bullshit! If you're going to restrain me against my will, then I DEMAND some answers!"

Alex opened his eyes and thought on that for a bit. _"…Yeah, I guess I'd feel the same way if I was in his shoes."_ The boy sighed and remarked "The truth is, I came here with someone else, but a powerful force separated us and I'm trying to figure out a way to reunite with them. So I figured…'Hey! If I captured known criminal Ragna the Bloodedge and brought him to the NOL, then they'd send an announcement across the city and the person I'm looking for would know where to find me!'"

"…" Ragna's brows lowered into a blank, disbelieving glare. The Grim Reaper only had a scathing critique to give to what he just heard "That…is the STUPIDEST plan I've EVER heard. Great, now I don't know what's worse…The fact a punk like you beat me, or that I'm a part of this STUPID plan!"

"…This plan isn't stupid…" Alex grumbled quietly, insulted by Ragna questioning his intelligence. He kept lying on the ground with legs crossed, leading Ragna to inquire bluntly "You sure aren't in a rush to turn me in, are you?"

"I'm giving my body a little rest so my wound can heal. Despite the pollution from the ships, this area's pretty rich in elemental energy." Alex replied with a slight smile on his face. Ragna groaned and said "…Y-You know what? I think I'm done trying to figure you out. It's just making my head hurt."

"That's nice…" Alex said in a lax manner before he drifted into a brief slumber. Ragna then tried to wiggle himself around some more, but nothing had changed about his bindings. "Goddamn it…If the rabbit sees this she'll never let me live it down." It would be the last thing he'd mumble until Alex woke up a half-hour later. The boy hopped to his feet and stretched upward, giving out a relaxed sigh.

"Good…barely any pain in my abdomen!" He then faced Ragna and walked over to him. "Cool, you didn't make a peep while I slept!" He was so nonchalant that Ragna had no shame in telling him off "At this point, I just can't wait to see the look on your face when you realize how goddamn stupid this plan of yours is."

The boy picked him up as though he was light as a toothpick and flung him over his shoulder. "Yeah yeah yeah…Everything's going to work out just fine. So frankly, I can't wait to see the look on YOUR face." Alex then kicked the glass wall down and casually walked out onto the docks, surprising everyone who was walking around there. The boy just ignored their glares and stared high up, remarking in a determined tone "Alright, next stop…the Kagutsuchi NOL branch."

 _Next Time: Encounter with a Hero_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Against the Cold Steel**

It was a relatively straight-forward trip for Alex after he had beaten his target. Ragna wiggled a little while, but ultimately he gave up on trying to escape and resigned himself to the stupidity of his predicament. Alex managed to find the staircases necessary to get to his destination, and the people who saw him carrying Ragna just murmured words of surprise that the famed criminal had been captured by a kid.

After an hour-long stroll through the city, night had begun to fall, and the sky darkened with the full moon creeping up over the horizon. Alex took a moment to look out at that beautiful sight, remarking in a nonchalant tone "Doesn't it look nice?" Ragna snapped dryly at the boy "Yes, the ground looks VERY nice today."

"Oh…right." Alex blinked and turned around, bending forward so Ragna could get a good look at the moon. The man was quiet for a bit, with the boy swearing he could hear him mumble the name "Saya…" at one point. Alex grumbled "Ooookay, my back's getting numb. Back down you go!" and then he stood up and caused Ragna to be facing the ground once more.

The boy then looked up towards the tall staircase leading to the cathedral's entrance and remarked "Well, time to put this plan into action." He made his way up the stairs, with Ragna's chin hitting the lip of each step as his head bobbed. "I'm going to tell you, one last time…Your plan is NOT going to work! The moment you hand me over to the NOL, those bastards are going to lock you up or kill you."

"Pffft, I'd like to see them try." Alex boasted while rolling his eyes. Ragna scowled and told him "You think you're invincible?"

"To common soldiers, yes. Seriously, have some faith in my plan. This isn't going to end with our funerals. The NOL would at least want to keep you alive so they can make an example out of you, so that gives me enough time to break you out once I've found my friend." By the time Alex explained himself, he was at the top of the stairs, and Ragna responded sarcastically "Oh that's a relief, if only you had told me that sooner SO I COULD YELL AT YOU FOR BEING AN EVEN BIGGER IDIOT THAN I THOUGHT YOU WERE!"

Ragna's body squirmed violently against Alex's body, with the boy gripping him tightly to make it stop. "Cut it out will you? Just cause you're bait doesn't mean you need to wiggle like it!" Ragna stopped and with a growl replied "You do NOT know how dangerous the NOL can be."

"I don't?" Alex aloofly replied while tilting his head. Then with a wave of his right arm out he dramatically declared "Why…they're only the only government in the entire world. With all that power in their hands, SURELY they must be saints!"

Ragna's expression went blank, and neither of them could believe the understanding he had for what Alex said "Wow…so you have some beef with the NOL too." Alex shook his head a little bit and replied "I have beef with any power-hungry organizations. It just doesn't help that a devilish bitch is in charge of this one."

"The Imperator? Ok…just what the HELL is your deal?" Ragna went back to demanding answers, but Alex brushed him off with a nonchalant "It's really none of your business Ragna. All you need to know is that despite your…awkward situation…we're on the same side." The boy then glanced aside and murmured "Even if you are technically a terrorist…"

"Did you say something?" Ragna bluntly inquired, and Alex shook his head and looked straight at the door. With an impressed whistle, Alex looked up and down and remarked "I'll give 'em credit for one thing though. They have damn good taste in architecture."

Ragna tried his damnedest to look over his shoulder at the door, where he then remarked "It may look nice, but it's dangerous. The NOL have sealed it with a dangerous Ars Magus. One touch, and we'll both be pulp in-" Ragna's body shook as something incredibly heavy crashed down nearby. He looked back again to find that the front door had been kicked down by Alex.

"Wow, what a shitty defense system." Alex hopped on top of the fallen door while Ragna's expression contorted in an intensely panicked manner "ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?! YOU COULD'VE KILLED US BOTH!"

"Key word being 'could've'." Alex nonchalantly remarked before hopping off the other side of the door. Ragna released a drawn out, frustrated sigh and yelled out "You've also probably alerted every freaking NOL soldier in here!" But the boy did even hear him.

Going down the hall and entering the lobby with the large, angelic statue overlooking the area, Alex yelled out "I have a special delivery for one Kagutsuchi Branch! I believe you ordered one large Grim Reaper, hold the blood?" His voice echoed through the emptiness without any response. Ragna expressed utter confusion "Empty? That can't be right…"

"Have you ever had to deal with ambushes before, Ragna?" Alex inquired, with the Grim Reaper telling him honestly "The bastards usually rush me head-on. Maybe they're out for a meeting…"

"Every single member…? That sounds incredibly convenient if so." Alex mentioned, while Ragna grinned and threw out a haughty laugh before telling him off "More like inconvenient for you! Looks like you won't be throwing me to those government dogs after all! Ha, take that you arrogant little shit!"

Alex curled his lips in contemplation and looked around. Closing his eyes, he couldn't sense any other powers in this building besides Ragna's. _"…Either this place really is empty, or something's blocking my senses. Either way, I can't really go through with my plan now, can I? …Bah, for Ragna of all people to be right…"_

He then bent down and placed Ragna on the ground. Without fanfare, Ragna was freed from his binds and allowed to rise to his feet. He grabbed his sore wrists and rubbed them, remarking in delight "Oooh…now that's more like it!" before he turned towards Alex and saw him with a rather neutral expression on his face.

Disappointingly drooping his eyelids, Ragna commented "What? Got nothing to say punk?" Alex shrugged his hands beside his shoulders and told him with little care "I was wrong, you were right. Whatever, I'll just take this time to scour the HQ for the thing I'm looking for."

Ragna glared at him for a few seconds then grit his teeth, letting out a light sigh before mentioning "Whatever, I got my own shit to take care of in here. Hopefully, we'll never run into each other again." Alex folded his arms behind his head as the Grim Reaper passed him by, then followed up by replying dryly "Yeah well, you shouldn't have to worry about that."

As Ragna's footsteps could be heard slowly descending down a flight of stairs, Alex poked his head over his shoulder and got to thinking _"Then again, considering the pattern of these artifact pieces popping up…"_ He parted his arms beside his hips and slowly turned around. Lowering his brows, he murmured "Can't be a coincidence I chose a plan that would bring myself here. Was I subconsciously drawn to the artifact…?"

He rubbed the back of his tilted head and mumbled in a bothered tone "No, that's stupid…I'm not an Aurian." He creaked his eyelids open and looked towards the staircase for a few more seconds. His heart raced against his chest, and with an exasperated sigh he said "Oh to hell with it, if I don't investigate now I'll feel like a dipshit."

Sprinting over to the stairs, Alex began to climb his way down at a decent pace. It didn't take long for him to find Ragna heading into the cavernous underground region. The man paused and glanced over his shoulder, commenting in a stand-offish tone "Didn't you say you were going to investigate?"

"I figured I'd start downstairs first." Alex nonchalantly replied. Ragna looked back and bluntly told him "Well buzz off, you're not going to find anything down here" before continuing down the stairs. Alex followed, but used wind as platforms to avoid making noise. Nevertheless, Ragna glanced over his shoulder again and this time got a little more angry at the boy "Seriously, you're wasting your time. Stop following me."

"You don't own this building. I'll go wherever the hell I want." Alex smugly replied with a sneer. Ragna just shook his head and kept moving on. Alex didn't even get to take one step before the man glanced back with a fierce glare and exclaimed "Ok seriously, cut it out! I don't give a shit how tough you are. What's waiting at the bottom of this godforsaken hellhole is a man-made abomination that only I can take care of. If you want to find that friend of yours, then check the rest of the building, then get the hell out of here."

Alex paused and laid his fingertips against his chest, saying in a high-pitched, serene voice "Oh goodness Mr. Bloodedge, underneath that rough exterior lies the heart of a gentleman! I never could've guessed!" Ragna closed his eyelids and stammered "W-Will you just shut up and listen for once, dumbass?! And for the record, if you use that voice again, I will SERIOUSLY punt you off the stairs."

Alex flipped his hand around and held it against his chest, leaning the other arm against the nearby wall and remarking "Look, if it's about the Cauldron, then don't get your britches in a bundle. That's what I want to investigate." Ragna scowled and murmured "You know about that too? …At this point, why am I even surprised. In fact, I'm starting to think you were sent to keep an eye on me by the goddamn rabbit."

"Sorry! No relation!" Alex took a bit of joy in crushing his observation to oblivion. Ragna raised his brows and glared "Then how the hell would you know about that? …Forget it, I already know you're not going to give me shit."

"Yeah, so lets just get going already. The Cauldron isn't going to destroy itself." Alex remarked, and Ragna sighed and murmured "I can only hope" before finally continuing down the stairs. The two eventually made it to a lift that was right above the oppressive Cauldron below. Alex put his arms behind his head and looked down at it, using the wind to guide the sound of a tense heartbeat coming from down below.

A chill ran down Alex's spine, and with a dry chuckle his lax disregard for what this place was truly like started to fade. _"…This may feel wrong, but that just means I'm in the right place…"_ He then quickly got onto the lift before Ragna went down without him. The two were deposited quite a number of feet away from the Cauldron's edge, and Ragna was the first to step out. He looked at the musty environment and laid a hand on his sword's handle.

"Just the same old shit every time…Maybe this time it'll be the end of this." He closed his eyes and murmured "Of course it won't." Then he drew his blade and grasped it in both hands. He looked towards the machinery surrounding the Cauldron and remarked with what little excitement he could muster "Well, time to get to work."

Then, the very moment Alex stepped off the lift, something made his and Ragna's body pulsate. Their bodies went cold and stiff, with a low sweat trickling down their bodies. Alex's mouth went agape while his pupils shrunk to dots. _"W-What the hell was that…? Was that…raw power?"_ The two of them slowly turned their head to face the right side of the room, listening as someone or something was taking their time walking over to them.

Ragna was unnerved, with his hands barely able to keep a grasp on his blade. "Son of a bitch…this pressure's like nothing I've ever felt before…" He gasped out while slowly curling his lips into a ferocious scowl. Their bodies pulsed again as someone began to step out from the shadows.

" _So, you finally arrived, Dark One."_

They spoke with a masked, deep and stoic reverb that could be discerned as masculine. The voice belonged to a tall, armored figure. His armor was pure white and not too thick, with a muscular body suit containing a large collar and black hakama underneath. Every piece of armor had at least one pair of small, piercing red eyes with slit pupils, none of them moving yet all of them appearing to stare straight towards the two. That was not the intimidating part about him though. What really got under Ragna and Alex's skin was his masked helmet, which had only two horns and no eyes. Yet, as he stood it was like his gaze was piercing right through them both. Finally, he had long silver hair tied into a mane and the sheath of a sword as tall as he was attached to his back.

The man stopped just ten feet away from the two, standing as still as a statue yet having the intimidating presence of a god. Alex found himself unable to move, as though his body instinctively had nailed his feet to the ground to prevent him from making any wrong moves. _"Goddamn it…Why is my body acting this way?!"_ He couldn't comprehend the 'Why' of the matter. After all, from his perspective, this man was not someone he should have to fear.

And yet, that man's icy gaze pierced not only through Ragna, but him as well. _"What is he thinking…?"_ As Alex struggled to find a truth he'd likely be better off not knowing, Ragna began mumbling to himself while looking down at his right arm "The Azure Grimoire…? Damnit, shut up!" And it was at that moment the masked man once again spoke.

" _Much time has passed since we last met, Black Beast."_

"Time has passed? What the hell are you talking about? We've never met before!" Ragna's lips quivered, something the masked man observed all too well _"Is something amiss? Your voice trembles. What are you afraid of?"_

"Shut the hell up…!" Ragna said, his sword rattling as he firmed his grip onto it. The man paused for a moment, then spoke briefly in praise _"…You have stood your ground, and for that you have earned my respect. Come…I shall put an end to this."_ His tone ended on a lowered-pitched, anticipating note while his right hand slowly went for the handle of his blade.

Ragna grit his teeth and exclaimed confidently "The hell do you think you are?! You're not ending anything!" The man's gauntlet rattled as he tightly gripped the blade and began to draw it from it's sheath. _"Fool…I shall see you expunged from this world, no matter the cost…"_

Before the blade was drawn, Alex suddenly yelled out "This really isn't the time for this nonsense! The re-" He was silenced the moment the masked man glanced his way. Then, words Alex had never expected to hear slowly emerged from the man's mouth _"…The successor to the Overlord's power…I did not expect to ever meet you, nor did I even consider that you would stand at the Dark One's side."_

Alex's expression went blank for just a few seconds. Then, with curiosity driving the fear away from his body he exclaimed to the man "And just how the hell do you know about my powers, Hakumen?!" Ragna's eyes widened sharply in surprise, and he murmured to the man "Hakumen…? The same Hakumen of the Six Heroes…? Bullshit, there's no way you'd still be alive."

The masked man neither confirmed nor denied the accusation from either party, and instead continued to draw his sword out while remarking _"I have nothing to say to you, successor. You have chosen your path poorly, and you shall share your fate with the Black Beast."_

He finished drawing his nodachi blade by phasing it through the sheath. This peerless blade was a marvel to look at, and it appeared to be sharp enough to cleave a mountain in two. Unfortunately, that power was to soon be aimed at Ragna and Alex.

Hakumen held that blade in his left hand and rested the other just a few inches above the hilt. As he then spoke out, the entire room began to shake. _"I am the white void. I am the cold steel. I am the just sword. With blade in hand shall I reap the sins of this world, and cleanse it in the fires of destruction!"_ The quaking only stabilized as a wreath of white fog spread out from his body and he held the sword's long handle in both hands, pointing it backwards and spreading his legs so he took a sideways stance towards his foes.

" _I am Hakumen! The end has come!"_

Ragna grit his teeth and declared tensely "You're going to regret getting in my way, you masked bitch…" Yet despite his bravado, he did not go in for the attack until Hakumen egged him on _"What's the matter? Your feet are trembling."_

"Shut up!" Ragna yelled before charging forward and swinging his darkness wrapped left fist at the man. Just centimeters from being hit, Hakumen swung his right arm up and a round blue seal with a few unrecognizable Japanese symbols appeared and blocked Ragna's punch. As the Grim Reaper looked surprised, Hakumen quickly dispelled the seal and grabbed his wrist, swinging him overhead and slamming him against the ground.

Alex went in with sword ablaze to attack Hakumen's vulnerable side, but the man held his nodachi downward and easily blocked the strike. The boy then watched as the flames from his sword suddenly vanished. _"What?!"_ He blurted out in his mind, distracted long enough for Hakumen to kick his left leg straight into Alex's kneecaps, leaving an inky black streak in his wake.

The kick made Alex's bones crack and his ability to stand faltered, but as he dropped Hakumen gracefully ducked back under Ragna's sword slash and used his right leg to kick Alex in the chest and knock him hard into the lift. Then the masked man clocked Ragna's sword with his elbow as he was standing up, knocking it free from his grasp.

Ragna grit his teeth and threw a punch at Hakumen's face, managing to strike him with all his might. However, the man did not flinch and remarked _"How weak!"_ before taking his blade and stabbing it right through Ragna's gut. The Grim Reaper coughed up blood as Hakumen ripped the blade out and grabbed his head, casting him aside so the blood would not stain his armor.

Then with perfect flow he swung his body to the right and slashed his blade as wide as he could to cut through the lift that Alex threw at him. The boy got right before the man and swung his blade down at him five times, watching as the fire was lost with each attack. After observing that strange phenomenon, Alex hopped back before Hakumen could counter him with another seal shield.

" _Great, so his Nox Nyctores can negate my elements. Best I can hope is that I can get past that…"_ He swung his left hand before his chest and draped it in fire, which reflected off the sleek surface of the man's mask and left him cautiously holding his sword behind his back.

" _Come…if you have the courage to face me."_ Hakumen remarked. Whether it was a compliment or a taunt was something Alex could not determine, but the weight of the man's unwavering power and exuded confidence kept the boy at bay.

" _This is the first time this journey that I'm facing someone who knows what powers I have."_ Alex tensely grit his teeth and began to feel a heavier sweat on his body. _"Shit, now I wish I hadn't used the Phoenix Form on Ragna. It would've saved my ass here big time…"_

" _How disappointing…"_ Hakumen made a quiet but scathing comment before he swung his blade outward, using so much power that the ground trembled. Alex grimaced and leaped up, levitating out of the man's reach and noticing that Ragna was rushing in from behind. Hakumen was not stopping in his swing and he turned around, nearly cutting through the width of the Grim Reaper's gut were it not for Alex blowing him away with a blast of air.

Ragna grunted and looked up, exclaiming to Alex "Hey you dick, what about that 'we're on the same side' crap?!" The boy remarked "Then try not to get yourself sliced up, dumbass!" and then shot some lightning bolts at Hakumen to draw his attention. The masked man turned around and easily swung his blade in fast and wide arcs to dispel the lightning before sharply turning back around in time to clash with Ragna's blade as he slashed out with a wave of darkness.

The darkness was blown away at the touch of Hakumen's blade and Ragna experienced the same confusion Alex had earlier, only he was a lot more vocal about it. "What the hell?!" He pulled back on his blade and tried to attack Hakumen's legs with a downward slash, but the man simply had to swerve his blade slightly to stop the attack.

In that moment, Alex lunged at Hakumen and smashed his flaming fist into the back of his armor. The man grunted slightly but retaliated by ramming his elbow back into Alex's face, simultaneously reversing the grip of his sword to keep Ragna's own blocked as he turned around and tried to cut Alex across the chest. The boy clasped the handle of his sword between both hands and just barely parried Hakumen's attack.

When Ragna went for a broad attack covered in darkness, Hakumen leaped over him and landed at the edge of the Cauldron back in his original stance. He didn't make a move, once again observing the actions of his foes. Ragna impatiently swung his sword at the ground to send a Dead Spike at Hakumen, then charged at him before seeing what the projectile would accomplish.

Naturally, Hakumen slashed at it with his sword, but unlike with Alex's elements the blade had a different reaction to the Dead Spike. A black sphere wrapped within a white veil appeared and swallowed the darkness in a vacuum while beginning to drag Ragna in as well. Forcing himself to stop didn't matter, as that just gave Hakumen and opening to dash straight through the sphere and use his left fist to uppercut Ragna in the chin and knock him into the air.

This had the added effect of causing his body to ram into Alex as he flew in to help. With both fighters stunned, Hakumen leaped above them and smashed the dull edge of his blade into Ragna's chest. When the two slammed against the ground, Hakumen landed and stabbed them through the chest, suspending them like a shish-kabob.

The two gasped in pain while blood dripped out of their mouths. Hakumen stood beside them and kept a tight grip on his blade. He wiggled it around slightly to cut more into their flesh, proclaiming in anger and disappointment _"Why aren't you fighting seriously?!"_ Ragna grit his teeth and with his head turned back asked in a tone of agony "N-Now would be a good time to use that power of yours!"

"Y-You think I would hold back?! I can't use that form now!" Alex exclaimed, but all the while he hid his hand behind his back and laid it on the ground. Cracking a sly grin he said "But I can do…THIS!" The ground trembled, and Hakumen pulled his sword out of the two and backed off before he could be pounded between two vertical pillars of stones.

" _Your tricks will not work on me, Successor."_ Hakumen remarked before using his blade to slash through the bottom pillar, causing the rest of it to start collapsing downward. Alex wrapped his arms around Ragna and rolled away just before it crashed. Mid-roll, the boy threw the Grim Reaper aside and drew his sword to block Hakumen's powerful downward slash.

Ragna quickly got on his feet and swung his sword out to the left. With his symbol appearing around him, Ragna charged straight at Hakumen while declaring "CARNAGE…!" Alex grit his teeth and thought _"No you idiot, that's what he wants!"_ Sure enough, the masked man swung his sword behind his back and thrust his left gauntlet up. A massive red seal with more Japanese words appeared before him while an emblem depicting a nine-tailed fox within a ring of nine blades appeared around him, and the seal took the full brunt of Ragna's attack without getting a crack.

Then, time completely stopped for all but Hakumen. Alex found it strange to be on the opposite end of this phenomenon for once, especially as it left him helpless to save Ragna from the masked man's counterattack. Hakumen dispelled the seal and remarked _"Empty Sky Form…"_ while pulling both himself and his sword back. _"WINTER'S RIPOSTE!"_ In a single, instantaneous motion, Hakumen was right behind Ragna with sword horizontal at his hip and time beginning to resume.

A series of cuts opened up across Ragna's body, with blood spurting out onto his clothes and the ground. He fell to his knees and let out a few drawn-out cries of agony, breaking away from that only to yell out to Hakumen "Bastard!" Alex got off the ground and looked at the masked man as he slowly turned around and swung the tip of his blade into Ragna's back. He did not pierce through it, but it was clear that he could do so at any point. The way things were now, the two were simply outmatched by Hakumen's otherworldly might.

" _Is this truly all you can muster, Dark One? Pitiful."_ As Hakumen loomed over Ragna, the man clenched his hand against the wounds on his chest and grumbled "My wounds aren't healing…what the hell kind of sorcery is this?!"

" _That tool you rely on so recklessly…that Azure Grimoire…It has proven to be your bane, Black Beast."_

Ragna gripped his sword tightly and spun around, slashing Hakumen's blade as hard as he could while furiously yelling "SHUT UP!" The masked man hopped back and swung his sword around to deflect each and every one of the Grim Reaper's reckless attacks. _"So you would still fight…?"_ Hakumen said with intrigue.

"As though I'd lose to some faceless bastard like you!" Ragna declared while continuing to attack, adding darkness to his blade even though it would swiftly get negated. Alex watched the frantic battle continue on with awe. He was impressed at Ragna's ability to keep going even though he was outmatched, and in turn found himself loathing his inability to jump in.

" _Why…? Did his words really shake me that much…?"_ Alex observed the clash of steel against steel as the two fighters became consumed in a storm of sparks and darkness. Hakumen was not losing any ground and continued to wound Ragna's body. Alex gripped his fists against his hips and winced _"He recognized my powers…But all I can sense from him is disappointment towards me."_

His frightened face tightened into a furious scowl, and as he clenched his hands tighter he looked up and said "Well I'll show you…!" and swung those arms right up while charging them full of fire. "Not to underestimate me!" Those flames were coerced to his palms and merged into burning orbs. The power within those flames shone brighter than the sun and drew the attention of both Ragna and Hakumen. Alex, with flames shooting forth from the sides of his eyes, exclaimed "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY RAGNA!"

Ragna immediately leaped away with an exasperated look in his eyes while Hakumen stood his ground and remarked with honest intrigue _"That stance…Interesting…"_ He raised his sword high above his head and his emblem appeared behind him as waves of white energy were dragged into his blade. _"Empty Sky Form…"_

Alex slammed his palms together and exclaimed "FLAME CANNON!" before firing a powerful blast of flames across the battlefield that burnt apart the ground like a hellish solar flare. Hakumen declared _"Summer's Advance!"_ without showing any sighs of fear before he swung his empowered blade straight down at the flames.

His attack struck straight through the center of the beam and spliced it in half, and by holding his blade against the ground the halves diverted around his body and rammed harmlessly into the wall behind him. Ragna held on to a nearby pillar just to avoid being blown away, grunting as he planted his feet into the ground and sweated. Alex's expression froze in shock and the flames stopped coming forth, with Hakumen standing in the center of a pale white floor without a single burn to his armor.

The man stood upright and held his sword at his hip, remarking quietly in a tone more scathing than any flames Alex could unleash _"Nothing but a worthless imitation…"_ The boy's eyes bulged a bit and he recoiled back, watching as Hakumen stepped onto the burning floor, the steam serving only to enhance his imposing presence. Alex was once again unable to move, finding himself questioning to himself angrily _"W-Why the hell is this happening?! I've faced the Dark King, I defeated my evil clone, I survived the end of fucking reality! Why…why am I so afraid of this one man?!"_

Hakumen stopped a few feet away from Alex, and the boy started to back off. He didn't realize until now that the man was a good foot taller than him, but now that gap in size felt even greater. The man drew his sword and remarked _"I shall sever your fate."_ Alex was barely able to breathe, his mind was racing, and he could only ask himself one thing _"I-I'll just be able to start over in another loop…R-Right…?"_ The nature of Hakumen's powers made that something he could not truly answer.

Yet, there was still hope to be found. The world was not yet finished with Alex Whiter's life. Suddenly, Hakumen's body became wrapped up in a static-y field of time-space warping energies. He couldn't budge an inch, and for once he expressed sheer rage at what was happening. _"Ghhh…How dare you interfere Grimalkin!"_ His rage directed at a being that wasn't there, Hakumen's body was helplessly warped away from the Cauldron.

Alex had to rub his eyes just to make sure he wasn't dreaming. With silence bathing the room, he was allowed a chance to think about what just happened. When the realization hit him of who came to the rescue, the boy fell onto his back and burst into an insane cackle, which quite frankly disturbed Ragna. "Oooookay…Is anyone going to tell me what the hell that was just about? No? Pffft, figures…"

The Grim Reaper slowly walked around the edge of the burning floor while laying a hand on his gut. He was still bleeding out, but the wounds were starting to heal up now that Hakumen was gone. Once he was next to Alex, he bent down and punched him one right in the forehead. "Cut it out dumbass!" The laughter stopped as Alex went to rub his now sore forehead. He had the wide smile of a man given a second chance at life, and as he stood up he thought _"Can't believe I'm saying this, but THANK YOU Kokonoe!"_

Standing face-to-face with Ragna, Alex brought finality to his laughter with a drawn-out sigh before commenting in a relieved tone "Heh…It's been an exciting day, hasn't it?" With a dull expression and his sarcastic wit, Ragna replied "Oh, it's just been sunshines and rainbow around these parts…"

He turned around and looked towards the Cauldron, finding that the heartbeat within it was starting to grow louder. Gritting his teeth into a scowl, the man remarked "Shit, thanks to that masked bastard the Cauldron's been allowed to finish the smelting process." He readily drew his sword and mumbled "What a pain in the ass…"

Alex's expression drooped to share the same sentiments Ragna had. With a dry sigh, Alex rubbed the back of his head and remembered _"That's right…We're not done yet. It's as they say…out of the frying pan…"_ The process of the Cauldron activating occurred right before the two's eyes. The chrysalis rose up and opened, and gently from within floated out Murakumo Unit No. 13, Nu. With the doll descending to the ground, Alex dreadfully muttered the end of his thoughts "And into the fire…" as Nu looked straight at Ragna and tilted her head to crack a playful smile.

"Oh Ragna, it's you! I missed you so much!" Said the doll in a cuddly, welcoming tone. And yet both of them knew that her actions, as much as they wished otherwise, would not reflect that innocent tone…

 _Next Time: To the Edge of Power_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Awakening the Chaos II: Rebellion of Chaos**

The Murakumo Unit stood at the edge of the Cauldron, looking only at Ragna with the utmost joy in her eyes. He was in no mood to reciprocate her smile and tender voice, and he was quick to spew hatred her way as coldly as he could "Shut up…You know exactly why I'm here."

Nu tilted her head and innocently tapped a finger on the side of her lips, saying words that were unbecoming of her displayed personality "Oh! Are you here to kill me again?" Ragna grit his teeth and drew his sword before his chest, bluntly telling her off "I'm not here to kill you, I'm here to destroy you!"

The Murakumo giggled and laid her hands before her chest "They're both one in the same!" Then with that same smile she began to explain in painfully real detail "You know, it really hurt the last time…You went in so deep, and you wouldn't stop wiggling it around. Hehehe, you know how hard it is for me to handle stuff like that Ragna!"

"Shut up!" Ragna suddenly burst into raw, vicious rage, his eyes flaring open with the intensity of a volcano as he stared the puzzled Murakumo down and exclaimed "Don't you dare say things like that with that voice!"

Nu giggled some more, almost tauntingly in fact, and she drew her right hand out with a lustful blush in her cheeks as she slowly asked "Didn't it feel good Ragna?" Ragna immediately declared "SHUT UP!" but Nu did not back down as her eyes glazed over and she looked ready to slobber.

"You knew exactly what you were doing Ragna…With that big smile on your face, you-"

"I SAID SHUT UP!" Ragna's eyes flared wide, and the air seemed to burn with his anger. Even Alex felt himself shudder in the presence of so profound a fury. The expression on Ragna's face felt more akin to that of a raging beast than a man, as he snarled venomously at the Murakumo Unit with as much hatred as he could muster. "That voice, that face, don't you DARE talk to me like that! I've come here to destroy you, that's ALL there is to it! There is NOTHING we need to talk about!"

Nu paused for a moment. The tension in the room was thick enough to choke the likes of Alex, who found himself staring at a scene he knew he had no right being a part of, at least from a personal standpoint. Yet, the Murakumo Unit was indeed a threat to the world, and that was enough to obligate the boy to stay and fight. _"If I can help Ragna destroy this bitch, then I'll have plenty of time to find Shina and the artifact piece…"_

He drew his sword and lashed it out at Nu, for a moment grabbing the attention of the doll and Ragna. Nu smiled and murmured "Oh Ragna…You brought another. That's so naughty~" The Grim Reaper yelled out to Alex "Get out of here! This isn't your goddamn fight anymore!"

"Hey, I'm trying to help out here!"

"You're in over your goddamn head! Get the hell out of here now!" Ragna then was forced to focus back on Nu as her giant sword plummeted to the ground behind her, and she drew her hand out to remark with a lot more quiet hostility "However, I only want you Ragna…Any outsiders will have to _**perish**_."

Then, a black aura erupted around Nu and her smile crept across her face slowly and maliciously as her eye turned pale white. Alex grit his teeth and thought _"Son of a BITCH are you kidding me?! This damn doll has the artifact piece?!"_ He would be forced to bear witness to her merging with the Murakumo blade and gaining the armor and floating blades, just like he figured. However, the change in colors from blue and white to black and crimson was not something he had expected.

Nu put on a tantalized smile as she warped over and whispered her perverse desires directly to Ragna's face "Now, shall I be soft…or rough?" Ragna swung his sword out to get her to back off, and as she giggled playfully he murmured in disdain "Bitch…"

Ragna was unaware of just how dangerous Nu would be with these newfound powers, but Alex knew all too well. "You need to back off! She's-" But before Alex could finish shouting to him, the Grim Reaper was already closing the gap between himself and Nu. _"Shit…guess I can't blame him for not listening considering that's a clone of his sister…"_ Alex thought to himself, as Nu swung the blunt ends of her swords into a protective stance against Ragna's rushing attack.

"Oh Ragna…Fist first this time?"

"Graaaaaah!" Ragna drew back his sword and then thrust it straight at Nu's face through the gap in the blades. She pinched her blades together to restrain it, grinding against the metal roughly enough to make sparks fly. Nu parted the blades both ways and slashed diagonally through Ragna's shoulders while pulling back to the edge of the Cauldron.

Blood flowed slowly from Ragna's wounds, but he scarcely looked phased due to his rage consuming him. He swung his sword at the ground to send a Dead Spike at Nu, only for her to charge forward and warp right past it to get before Ragna's body. Ragna swung his sword down with an arc of thick darkness in his wake, but Nu merely skated right behind him right as the attack was to connect. Her childish giggling continued to ring bitterly in Ragna's ears, but as he turned around to attack Nu stabbed two of her blades straight through his chest.

"Guhh, gah!" Ragna grunted in pain, and in a delighted voice Nu squealed "Oooh Ragna! So this is what your screams sound like! It's such a happy melody!" Then, a fireball flew out and struck the side of the Murakumo's body, which caused her to slide away while leaning forward and using her fingers as brakes. She lifted her head up and locked onto Alex as he thrust his hands out with all his might to keep sending giant fireballs her way.

She slashed through them with rapid swings of her blades while saying in a reprimanding manner "Uh uh uh! You need to wait your tuuuuurn!" Alex cupped his hands back and began charging up a much larger fireball than before. "Sorry, not the patient type!" He angrily replied before he launched a fireball three times as big as he was straight at Nu.

The Murakumo grinned as the fire cast an increasingly darker shadow over her body. Opening two rifts directly in front of her, Nu fired off streams of tiny blades directly into the fireball. They slowed the fireball down at first, then began to pierce through it as it became too weak to stand against the blades. When the embers scattered and fell, Nu charged past them and got right in front of Alex's face, attempting to slice through him with a downward swing of her blades.

Alex held his sword out and blocked all the attacks, then he jabbed his right elbow into Nu's face, sending electricity coursing through her body. She pulled back a little and murmured robotically "Error…error…Redirecting focus to electromagnetic defenses…" Alex stepped back a little and swung his left hand up.

"Now where's that damn artifact piece…" He murmured before peeling up part of the floor and breaking it down into a wall of metallic needles. Right as he fired them off, Nu got up and warped back, disappearing long enough to avoid them all. However, Alex charged ahead while digging his sword into the ground, lashing it out to send a wave of magma at the doll's body.

She took the attack and parts of her clothes burned off, but she didn't even flinch and quickly fired a string of blades at different parts of Alex's body. The boy's hips were punctured in the midst of him protecting his chest from the other blades, and he grimaced in pain. Nu started giggling again, her newborn mind enjoying this battle with the same joy that a child would have with their playthings.

In her glee, she only barely noticed Ragna attacking her from behind, where he used the handle of his sword to strike the back of her skull and knock her up. "Die already you damn doll!" He exclaimed before leaping and making her flip around with an uppercut at the same spot on her head. When she was upside-down she briefly flashed a smile at Ragna, earning him a scowl as he smashed her gut with his right fist, sending her flying away.

Nu flung around in place until she was upright again, levitating on top of a glyphic platform. She bent down and laid a hand on the edge of it, remarking in an energetic tone "Hope you like it big, Ragna!" A series of rifts opened above the two she fought, bringing large black and bronze energy blades crashing down from the front towards the back.

"Shit…!" Ragna and Alex exclaimed at the same time before they ran to the other side of the room, getting under the protection of the corridor's ceiling just in the nick of time. The ground was covered in dust as the swords pulled themselves back into the rift, with the only sight of Nu through that thicket being the piercing light from her visor.

"Ooooh Ragna…Where are yooooou? Playing hard to get are you…?" Nu taunted the Grim Reaper in a sing-song manner. Ragna gripped his sword tightly and with a growl of "I'm going to end you…" he was about to rush recklessly when Alex reined him in with a strong jerk of his coat.

Ragna was about to object when Alex forced him to kneel by socking him on the head. The two hid behind the stone fence in the hall and Ragna growled some more, with Alex laying a hand over his mouth to force only muffled yelling to come through. The boy then hastily whispered "You wanna ruin our only chance to come up with a plan, then fine!"

Ragna grabbed Alex by the wrist and jerked it away with more force than needed, telling him off with a furious whisper "Don't give me that shit! You're just getting in my way!" Alex pulled his hand out of Ragna's grasp and then tightly grabbed HIS wrist, forcibly flipping it around so the man had a good look at the seal on his glove.

"You want to talk about getting in the way, why aren't you using your damn Azure? I can't use my Phoenix Form, so you're the best bet we have of taking this bitch down!"

Ragna gave him an unamused glare before replying "Well maybe if a certain dumbass hadn't been so adamant on following his dumbass plan, then maybe, just MAYBE I'd have the strength to activate it right now!" Alex widened his eyes and briefly thought _"Oh…"_ he then shook his head rapidly and murmured "F-Fine…we can still make this work, but you have to listen to me."

"Hell no! I ain't trusting you with shit!" Ragna's admittedly justified defiance nevertheless earned the scornful eye of Alex, who slammed his face into his and spat out bluntly "You're GOING to listen to me this time buster. That Murakumo Unit is corrupted by the power of the artifact piece that I've been looking for, and is therefore stronger than what you were probably expecting. BUT, if you can help me pull that out of her, then you'll have a much easier time. Got it?!"

Ragna closed his eyes and murmured hastily "Ok ok fine, geez! But when we're done here, you better leave me the hell alone, ok?" Alex nodded his head and smiled "Pffft, as though I'd have any reason to stick around this hellhole anyways!"

Then, Alex poked his head over the fence and saw Nu slowly walking around. She scanned the landscape and remarked merrily "Ragna? Oh Raaaaaaagnaaaa? You can't hide from me forever…I haven't finished having fun with you yet!" Her footsteps, though quiet, had a tense echo to them.

She then sounded saddened as she remarked "Come on Ragna…I just want to play with you…Like you've played with me before..." Her voice reflected her thoughts more vividly as she went on "The first time…You were so rough with me. But you enjoyed it…so I did too…And the second time, you went even deeper than before. You were so thorough…and you loved every second of it. Because that's what you love…you love to destroy everything, just…like… **me.** "

Ragna was about to break his cover were it not for Alex magnetizing his shoes to the ground and telling him "She's just trying to piss you off! Stay down!" After rubbing her moist, blushing face for a little bit, Nu slowly caressed down the sides of her body in the midst of spreading her arms out. "This time I'm ready to take all of you into me Ragna…and together we'll become one and destroy this horrible world…"

She leaned her head back and a dozen rifts opened up around her body. Playfully and gleefully, Nu exclaimed "But if you're going to hide, then I'm just going to have to seek!" before firing hundreds of tiny swords all across the room. Alex yelled out "Shit!" upon noticing this and he quickly rolled to the left before the swords could piercing through him. Ragna ended up rolling to the right and got on his feet to swing at the swords, but the moment Nu caught a glimpse of him she dropped the rifts and proclaimed "There you are!" and then charged forward.

In a millisecond she got next to him and rammed her shoulder into his chest, throwing him against the wall where she then swung her right arm out and sent her floating blades right through his limbs to pin him in place. She then slowly began to float over to him as he grunted and tried to pull himself free. Lustily, Nu murmured "Together…forever…" as she stretched her arms out ready to wrap Ragna in an embrace.

Before she could ever succeed, Alex smashed into her with a powerful lightning kick that left a bolted streak in the sky. He dragged Nu's body into the wall and then grinded her up against it until he had reached the gap where the lift was, where he then swung his foot to the left to send her flying at the Cauldron.

She floated upright and put on a grin, telling Alex innocently "You're really naughty aren't you? Do you want to be stabbed now?" Alex charged right at her and drew his sword to thrust it at her chest. She swung her bladed arm out to push it aside and then lunged that same blade at Alex's neck. He coated his neck in metal and the blade lost some of it's edge grinding against it in futility.

Nu looked puzzled for a moment, giving Alex the chance to deck her in the face with a flaming punch. She was only pushed back a little bit, but with blood flying out of her nose. Before the boy could go in for another strike, the Murakumo bent forward and pulled up at the empty air, causing a string of blades to thrust up from the nothingness underneath Alex.

The boy grit his teeth and flew back, pulling his left hand beside himself and creating a sphere of water. He flung that straight at Nu and drenched her body wholesale, leading her to remark angrily "No! Only Ragna's allowed to get me wet!" The boy then snapped his fingers and dryly commented "Chill out already."

Taking the cold that permeated the room, Alex froze Nu's body over completely. He quickly concentrated on that ice to keep her from plummeting into the Cauldron, then he floated over to her and swung his sword out. _"Time to carve you up and get that damn stone out…"_ Before he could make the first swing, a piercing pain shot through his left hip and paralyzed his arm. He looked down and saw that one of Nu's blades had been plunged into his body. It squeezed and twisted into the wound, making blood squirt out and the pain increase more. Alex's once confident smile tensed up into a pained pucker, with his eyes widening as much as they physically could and his vision blurring for a moment.

" _H-How the hell could s-she have…?!"_

Alex looked straight at Nu and saw her frozen lips trembled as they curled into a smile. The ice steamed as her body was filled with a mechanical warmth. The boy quickly grabbed onto the sword and used all his strength to rip it out, but then two more blades flew into his arm and pinned it against the side of his body. As the blood splashed before his eyes, his mouth went agape and the scream he tried to hold back let loose in a raspy manner "Gaa…GAAAAAH!"

By then Nu thawed out with an immediate remark of "That was so cold…But it felt so powerful and destructive too…" Her tone was one of pure, unbridled bliss.

The boy quickly lashed his blade out with a wave of scathing fire. It burned into Nu's exposed skin and left the flesh underneath boiling black, but she just shook and appeared to be enjoying the pain with glazed over eyes. "You want to destroy everything too…don't you…?" Alex grit his teeth and with a painful, subdued roar he flexed his left arm and forced the swords right out of his body, caring not to cauterize the wounds so he could quickly swing at Nu multiple times with his sword.

Nu swiftly shifted her body around with surprising agility, all the while taunting to Alex "But you can't give me what I need…Only Ragna's capable of satisfying me. It's time for you to _**disappear**_ …" She then thrust her right leg up past the boy's sword and struck him in the chin, knocking him away and drawing blood from there to the bottom of his lips. The boy stared forward and fired high-heat beams from his eyes, both of which pierced through Nu's chest.

She swung her arm out and an energy sword thrust forth from a rift, only for it to be deflected by Alex's blade. He then flipped back onto the ground as Nu tried to bring one of those giant blades down on top of his head. The Murakumo warped after him, but Alex grinned as Ragna came charging in with his Carnage Scissors. The first strike from that slammed Nu to the ground, leaving her especially vulnerable to the scissor shaped blast of blood he unleashed afterwards.

She was launched across the ground, her body torn into quite a bit. After she recovered and rose to her feet, she lifted her head up and half her visor had broken off, the other part of it coming off a moment later. Her wounds were slowly healing up, and she released a slow and hollow giggle. With blood drying across her, Nu smiled and said "It's so wet and sticky Ragna…But it's all yours. A product of your rage…"

She slowly floated closer to Ragna while her swords latched into place behind her. Ragna gripped his sword tightly and exclaimed "Why won't you die?!" Nu reared her head back and spoke lovingly to him "Hehehe…Silly Ragna. We're meant to be one…You and I…We'll become one and destroy everything over and over and over again…It's what we both want, don't deny it."

"DEAD SPIKE!" Ragna roared as he swung that attack at Nu. The Murakumo couldn't avoid it as Alex pulled up part of the ground like a wave and flung her at the projectile. The attack splashed against Nu's body and held her in mid-air. Ragna then ran right at the Murakumo and his right arm turned into a massive claw of darkness. He snatched Nu in his grasp and raised her up high, growling bitterly to her face "Sorry, but you have to die now…!"

The ground boiled over with a pond of pure blood around Ragna's feet, and all at once it rose up and repeatedly lashed through Nu's body. She muttered with the tone of a pained child "I-It hurts Ragna…" For a moment, Ragna felt hesitation and let out a "Tsk…" only for him to then whisper "I'm sorry…" before he crushed his claw down and finished his onslaught with a burst of darkness that sent Nu hurtling into the wall above the right hallway.

Her body had become chewed up, with half her flesh now simply gone and her left eye ripped apart. She began to heal from even that while murmuring down to Ragna "I-I love you, Ragna…Why must you be so mean to me…?" The Grim Reaper clenched his fists tightly beside his hips, but before he could say anything Alex clapped his hands and crushed Nu's head between the rock she had indented into.

Her blood dripped out between them both and her body fell limp onto the ground. Ragna grit his teeth and let out a sigh. "Damn it all…" He whispered in regret. Alex shook his head and remarked "Forget about it Ragna. It's over now." He approached the Murakumo's corpse with blade drawn to dig in for the stone. He swung down with all his might, and…

" _ **Shink!"**_

Six blades shot diagonally into the front of his body, digging deeper than they ever had before. His head lurched forward and blood shot forth from his mouth onto Nu's back, which was the first part of her body to start rising up. Alex began to fall down as an excruciating amount of pain ripped through his nervous system. He had to lift his head up to see Nu standing, but the occasional blurs in his line of sight complicated things even further.

First the bone regenerated from scratch, with each piece of her spine linking together as the skull formed. Then, the flesh and muscle meshed together back into place, with her sockets being filled with the white liquid of the eyes, which was sealed in by the lens. Her skin was layered back on in flakes, and her hair grew back out like a wildfire, perfectly forming into a ponytail. By the time her head had reformed, Alex's body was already lurched forward on the ground, his stomach churning in disgust from such a horribly off-putting sight.

Nu giggled and looked at a repulsed Ragna with her eyes glowing brightly. She left her mouth agape and licked the traces of viscera off her lips before saying "That was just a warm-up Ragna…Now I'm really ready to go at you." The Grim Reaper's body shook as he swung his sword at her and scowled "You're a devil…"

Nu walked forward, stabbing her foot through Alex's back a couple times as she stretched her arms and said in a slow, sickeningly sweet tone "Oh Ragna…I can be your angel, or your devil…Or anything you want me to be. Just say the word, tell me your wish, and I'll be here to give you your every need."

"I want you to die!"

Ragna swung his blade straight out and Nu grabbed it by the tip, letting it pierce through and bloody her palm. She slowly shook her head and said cheerfully "Uh uh uh! You're silly Ragna! I can't die! We're connected…we're meant to be together forever!" She slowly pulled herself forward, lowering the blade so it'd pierced through her stomach nice and slow. Her cheeks reddened, her body throbbed in ecstasy, and she moaned to Ragna "Ooooh…ohhh Ragna…It feels so natural…"

"You goddamn bitch!" Ragna ignited his left hand with darkness and was about to swing it at her face when she whipped her left hand up and pulled the blades out of Alex, stabbing them through Ragna's body. Specifically, she pushed them down through the tops of his shoulders and straight through his kneecaps. Blood coughed up from Ragna's mouth and he murmured "S-Shit…I-I can't…move!"

"It's alright…soon enough…movement, emotion, thought, feelings…none of that will matter Ragna. We'll be one…we'll be able to destroy everything…After all, that's all that really matters, hehe!" Nu dug herself deeper into Ragna's sword, and she began to raise her bloodied hand to his cheek.

Then, she was ripped away with a rough tug from the back and thrown viciously against a rising steel wall. Her body lurched forward and she let out a sharp gasp. Alex had ripped her away, his body surrounded by a raging inferno. With a few pants as his body slowly bled, the boy clenched his fists tightly and exclaimed "Someone like you…doesn't deserve happiness! NOW DIE!" He got right in front of her and smashed her healing gut straight through with a burning fist.

The back of the wall he summoned rippled from the impact, and it kept doing so even as his attacks hit harder and harder. He wildly dug into Nu's body with all he could, furiously asking in his mind _"If it's not in her head, where is it?!"_ Her body struggled to keep up with the ferocity of Alex's barrage of fists, and she begged in anger "N-No! Get away from me…! You're not the one…You're not the one!"

"Shut up you damn tool!" Alex screamed as he smashed his fist into her chest as hard as he could, ripping it apart and revealing a curved stone buried into her flesh. The boy widened his eyes and swung his bare hand out to grab it, only for two swords to slice through his wrist and cut it clean off. _"…N-No!"_ Alex grit his teeth through the pain and brought heat onto the wound before the blood could spray too much.

Before he could swing his other hand forward, Nu pulled herself from the wall and slashed Alex down across the face. The pain was seething at this point, and Alex reeled his head back and screamed out in agony. The Murakumo mercilessly stabbed her foot through the boy's chest to kick him away, where he landed beside Ragna and slid along the ground in a trail of his own blood. Nu then floated over to Ragna as her body healed up, but when she noticed his sword was lowered she said "Awww…are you too weak to continue Ragna? It's ok! I can take up the slack!"

Once she was right next to him, she drew a thick smile and held onto his shoulders. There was a moment of silence broken by a sharp shriek as Ragna and Nu were pierced straight through by a giant white sword. Nu's ponytail broke apart and her hair flowed down her body while the white of her right eye turned pale red and the irises became thick and bloody. Ragna's eyes started to glow while he growled and grunted, unable to do anything as the seals on his gloves opened up and a thick, vein-y darkness crawled up his and Nu's arms.

Nu pulled Ragna in close and started to hug him, her body drenched in his and her own blood. "It's so warm Ragna…Isn't it wonderful…?" The Grim Reaper batted his eyes and struggled just to speak "L-Let…go of…me!"

"This is what we've always wanted Ragna…Let our hearts beat as one…Let us destroy this twisted, heartless world together…" Nu nestled her head against Ragna's chest and let out a gleeful sigh, all the while Alex could only lay on the ground and witness the cataclysmic event unfold. His body was bleeding profusely, and all the energy he could've used was going with him. He could only stare up and watch as those two were ready to merge to become this world's greatest terror, the Black Beast.

" _I-I'm going to…die…"_

The boy slowly blinked once, and his lips began to curl up on their own. "I-I-I'm…going to die…" He murmured, a little more unhinged sounding. His eyes perked up a little, and his smile widened as far as it could. Then, something in his mind simply snapped, and he started out with a quiet laugh that grabbed Ragna and Nu's attention. The boy's laughter then got louder and louder until he was able to limp his gloved finger up to point straight at Nu.

"You…you think this is over?! You can stab me as much as you want, but I can just keep coming back and start this over time and time again! I have infinite retries, while you just get one damn life you stupid doll! So enjoy your little bonding time with Ragna for now…When time loops over, I'm going to come back here, and TEAR YOUR NEXT ITERATION TO FUCKING SHREDS! Hehehe…HAHAHAHA! Gluh…GUUHH!"

He spouted up blood before Nu called one of her little swords to slice through his neck, rendering him silent for the remaining seconds of his life. The last thing Alex would hear from her was her sadistic glee "Now it's just you and me Ragna…Nothing can stop us from enjoying this moment… _Nothing…_ "

" _In the final moments of this horrible cycle, just like any other, the Murakumo and the Grim Reaper would merge to become the enemy of mankind, the Black Beast. They will fall into the Cauldron and be hurtled through the annals of history to the past, and the future they left behind shall be incinerated in the light of judgment…"_

Once more, the gothic girl watched over the scorched remains of Kagutsuchi from the skies before the full moon. The wind rang hollowly past her, and she murmured in a pitying tone "And nothing can change these events. Not from here…not from any other world…" She then vanished from the sight of the world, forced to experience this all again…

 _Next Time: Can't Ignore my Heart_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: The Dame and the Devil**

In a lone, quiet forest far away from society, the canopy was filled with the chirps of little birds as they flutter out towards the clear sunny skies. When those chirps drew silent, they were replaced with the occasional, relaxed snore. Laying atop the smooth branches with a few dew trickling leaves above her was Shina, whose body was cuddled up atop a particularly thick branch with her hands rested on her cheeks and elbows pressing together her chest.

"Zzz…hehehe…You look so cute in that dress, siiiiis…."

A drop of dew plopped on the side of her nose, causing her to slowly turn over and lay on her back with a smile widening across her peaceful face. "H-Hey siiis…it's just a compliment, don't look so embarrassed…" A couple more drops pattered down atop her eyelids, their chill composition sending an awakening jolt through the girl's body. She slowly woke up and yawned "Not there sis…that's so naug-"

She was greeted by the glistening lights between the canopy leaves, which acted as an awakening slap to the face. She jerked her head up, but without conscious thought she pulled back to avoid a branch in front of her. Then, her eyes cracked open all the way and her body stiffened, as though grasped in a cold, deathly hand.

Then her head started to throb, and while rubbing the back of it she let out a puff of air and went "Whew…Déjà vu."

Suddenly, a sharp sensation - like a record player scratching to a stop - went through the center of her brain. She grit her teeth as memories of Noel swam through her mind.

What started off happily descended into a spiral of pain and despair once Nu showed up, and Shina was forced to watch Noel be ripped apart before her eyes followed by her own head getting sliced off.

With a ghastly stare forward, Shina found herself at a loss of breath as she slowly raised a hand to the front of her neck. It was like a hot, sharp knife was currently cutting it's way through her skin. But the pain wasn't really there, it was only a phantom of time immemorial. Not that it made the feeling any less frightening to experience. For a few seconds, Shina rubbed her neck while trying to come to terms with what's going on.

"A-Ahh…This feeling is so strange…It hurts…hurts so much…"

Her rubs got slower until she was pinching the sides of her cheeks gently. With a drawn-out, quiet breath, Shina closed her eyes drew her hand to her chest and waited until her heartbeat slowed slightly. _"…C-Calm down Shina…You're still alive…you're still alive…"_ She took in another, longer breath and then clasped the front of her shirt tightly.

"…Whew…"

Then she started to crack a smile and reprimanded herself with a humored murmur "That's right…Hahaha…I'm a part of this time loop now. Until it's broken, I can't die." She felt there was something a little perturbing about that, but her relief overwhelmed that feeling.

With a wider smile, Shina looked up to the sky and said "I don't know what Alex did, but I'm going to give him the biggest hug ever when I run into him!" Then, she hopped to her feet and swayed a bit trying to keep her balance on the branch. Pumping her fists beside her body while puffing her cheeks, she then proudly declared "Alright! Then I'm going to make it work this time! I know where the stone is, so all I got to do is-"

She suddenly paused and with a couple blinks cracked a dry smirk and realized "I-I have to break back into the NOL HQ." She continued on with some slow and forced laughter upon thinking about her previous plan. _"I-I don't want to assault another officer…I need to come up with a different plan this time."_

Perking her brows up, Shina exclaimed "Oh that's right! I could just ask No-" then a depressing thought manifested inside of her. Had she not brought the matter up, she probably wouldn't even had considered it now. Her lips sunk into a tiny frown, and the energy she used to raise her fists went limp as they did.

"…We've technically never met now…She won't remember me."

There was an emptiness in Shina's heart that she could not describe. This feeling had never occurred to her before, not like this. The idea of losing a friend had never once crossed her mind before, especially not in this manner. The memories were there, the gestures and words were fresh in her mind, but only in hers alone. Even if she met Noel again, connecting with her again just wouldn't feel the same.

Closing her eyes, Shina trembled a little bit while forcing herself to admit "I-I can't find her again…I have to try something else entirely to get into the NOL HQ." With a heart wracked with guilt over what she just said, Shina tried to put on a smile and firmly nodded her head. "Ok…I'll figure out a plan once I head into Kagutsuchi." She then kicked off the branch and flew out of the forest, with a flurry of leaves flying aside off the roof of the canopy.

At first, Shina's body had difficulty staying steady, to which she rationalized as "Must be a side effect of time travel…" but it didn't take her long to stabilize and fly to Kagutsuchi. She decided this time to land in Orient Town, since that seemed to be the safest place in town even if it was bustling with activity. Landing in the alleyway, she made her way out into the streets and blended into the crowd as best as a six-foot tall blonde could amongst a plethora of foreigners and beastmen.

Wandering through the town until she ended up in the open space overlooking the outskirts of the entire city of Kagutsuchi, Shina brushed a hand beside her face and let the breeze comfort her for a moment. Delicately smiling, the girl pulled her head back a little and thought _"This place reminds me a bit of home. If I had a choice, it might be fun trying to live here for a while."_

Slowly shaking her head, Shina folded her arms under her chest and opened her eyes. "Ok, lemme think here…The Kagutsuchi branch is normally protected against intruders by a powerful Ars Magus seal. The only way to get inside would be to disable the Ars. I don't think my Aura's going to cut it unless I make the door go 'KERRRASSSH!'…and that's just breaking and entering. That sounds more 'Alex-ish' than 'Shina-ish'."

Curling her bottom lip up, Shina tapped her right foot down and murmured "Though I'm going to be breaking the law if I get the seal disabled anyways." Squinting her eyelids tightly as she hummed deeply, Shina then grunted through her teeth "I reeeeeeaaally wish I didn't have to keep breaking all these laws, but it's almost like I have to so I can save my people…Uuuugh."

Shina held herself in a contemplating embrace, cupping her arms under her ample bosom as she looked towards the sky and briefly considered "Maybe I should just say 'To heck with it' and just embrace being a bad girl this one time. As long as I don't hurt anyone, it should be fine…right?" But her heart grew heavy almost right away. Those thoughts were like poison to such an innocent mind, and Shina was rid of them with a few gestures of her fingers away from her forehead.

"Shoo, shoo, go away!" She spoke with the high-pitch of an eight-year old and then blushed redder than roses. Shaking her head so rapidly one would see her expression as a blur if in front of her, Shina remarked "Ok come on Shina, 'nuff goofing around! You've got some brains, so now's the time to push them to the limit!"

She lurched forward and clenched her fists beside her chest. With a grunt so strained it was like her bowels were about to explode, Shina tried to work out anything she possibly could regarding what to do about getting back into the HQ. Unfortunately, she might have thought a little TOO much as she started to get a headache and was forced to swing her body upright before she ran out of breath.

"Ha…hoo…! Oh crap I REALLY needed to slow down there…!" She stumbled back and forth, by now drawing more than a fair share of attention her way. Shaking her head some more, Shina laid a hand on her forehead and rubbed the temples, remarking in a flustered tone "Oh geez, there's just so much to consider for this world…And who knows where everyone even is on any given loop."

Focusing just a couple fingers on her forehead for scratching, Shina murmured "Well…I got twelve hours to spare ever loop, so I guess what I could do is wander around and see who I can run into. If nothing else, maybe I could also find an ally to help me handle Nu." She then looked at her bracelet and made mention of "The Valkyrie Drive's pretty strong, but…"

Wincing at the memory of her hand being cleanly sliced off, Shina ended her thought somberly "I can't activate it facing her alone." She clenched her fist tightly against her chest and then gave a firm nod. "Ok, time to see who I can find. Might as well start here, a lot of important folk tend to pass through if I recall correctly…"

Ignoring the weird glances from the populace, Shina took a casual stroll through Orient Town in search of help. In a matter of minutes though, she started to hear a conversation unfolding down a nearby street. Sticking to a corner like glue, Shina peeked around and saw two figures conversing in front of what looked like a small doctor's office.

The person on the right was one of the biggest men Shina had ever seen in her life. Standing nearly eight feet tall, this giant had the muscular density of an ancient god like Atlus, this beefiness only given further weight thanks to the massive black gauntlets on his hands. He somehow managed to fit into a dark-red sleeveless uniform with stretched shorts made complete with plates on his hips. The man had the face and skin of a red ogre, rough and ragged like he had experienced many wars in his long lifetime, the white streak on his spiky black hair attested to that experience well. Yet, despite his beastly appearance, Shina could only sense tranquility within the man's aura.

The other person was an Asian woman only a few inches shorter than Shina, but with a more motherly demeanor and body frame. She had long black hair tied into a ponytail with a yin-yang accessory at the end, and her choice of clothing was rather provocative. She had on an unbuttoned red vest that showed her plump breasts struggling to be contained by her lace black bra, and below that was a Chinese skirt dress that exposed her hefty thighs with the brief hints of a black thong underneath. Yet despite an initial glance making her come across as a desperate stripper, Shina had her reasons for being more respectful of the gal's appearance. One, she had an air of maturity around her that reminded the girl a lot of her own mother. Two, she was speaking courteously to the giant man in front of her.

"Professor, please, isn't there anything you can do to help?"

With the glasses on the man, it'd be easy to assume that he was the one being given such a prodigious title. Shina knew, however, that this was not the case. Instead, it was the person listening in through the man's communicator that had such an honor given. Even from this distance, Shina could make out the other person's rough and somewhat crabby female voice.

" _Give it a rest Litchi. There's no saving that man anymore. That idiot made his mistakes and he'll pay for them for the rest of his life. I'm saying this for your own good, cut your losses and forget about him."_

"No! There has to still be a way to save him!" In contrast to Shina's initial impressions of it, the woman's aura started to become wrapped in turmoil and her tone in turn grew slightly desperate. She hastily begged the voice listening in "Please Professor! You can't tell me there's not some Ars Magus that can save someone infected by the Boundary!"

" _Oh please, who do you take me for? If there was an answer I would've damn well used it by now."_ The person's arrogance came out with more impatience than before, and they quickly went on to say _"Get it through your head Litchi. Roy's gone…All that's left is that hideous blob known as Arakune"_ with the utmost lack of empathy.

Litchi leaned forward and swung her arms out, declaring to the voice with all their heart put into every word "No! I'm not going to give up on him! Professor-"

" _Oh for the love of god…Tager, this is getting ridiculous. Incapacitate her and get a move on, we have bigger shit to deal with."_ The voice's impatience reached a boiling point, and she didn't hesitate in her demands towards the giant red man. Tager let out a quiet sigh and then stretched his arms out, pointing the red lens on his palms at Litchi while taking a couple steps back.

"We don't have to do this Litchi." He spoke in a deep but subdued voice, a tint of guilt added to attempt at placation. Litchi swung her right leg up and took up the pose of a martial artist as a red-white-black staff as tall as her suddenly appeared behind her. Firmly but disappointingly, Litchi told the man "You have your orders Tager…But I'm not going to go down easily. I can't give up on him, you know that more than anyone."

"…I do. But what you're doing is only going to destroy you as well, Litchi. At least understand where Professor Kokonoe is coming from here." Tager tried his hardest to bridge the two viewpoints together, but Litchi simply shook her head and said bluntly "I'm sorry, but I just can't."

"…Then forgive me, I cannot hold back. But know that I'm doing this for your own good, Litchi." Even as he was to commit to battle, Tager stayed apologetic to the bitter end. He then swung his massive fist forward, his attack blocked by Litchi swiftly thrusting her palms out and commanding her staff to come forth and block the strike perfectly. A flash of green sparks flew forth from Tager's gloves, partially raising some of the tiles off the ground magnetically. Tager then made a short hop back as Litchi commanded the staff to drop towards his head.

As Shina watched this fight start, she was torn on what to do. She tensely gripped her fists before her chest and pulled away from the corner, disturbed briefly by the trembles from Tager's power striking.

" _Ooooh…What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?! This has nothing to do with me, but…"_ She peeked around the corner just a little bit and saw Litchi fighting with all her might, even as her staff continued to be repelled by Tager's goliath-sized gauntlets. Shina's heart not only felt weighed down in guilt, especially seeing how this fight was unnecessary and cruel. She knew that all Litchi wanted was to save the person she loved so very much, and that made her feel like they were kindred spirits. Yet despite hearing the plea of such a selfless purpose, Kokonoe was forcing a former comrade of Litchi's to bring harm down upon her.

Clenching her hands on the wall hard enough that she started to crack the bricks, Shina took a gulp and hastily murmured "Oh if Alex ever finds out about this…!" and then sprinted out from behind cover while swinging her right arm out and wasting no time in drawing her rapier. As Tager's right fist erupted with green electricity and he swung it towards a staggering Litchi, Shina JUST managed to slip between the two and swing her aura coated weapon right at the massive fist.

With a fervent glare, Shina wasn't shocked that the giant's strength shattered her aura. At the very least, she managed to hold his fist at bay by planting her feet in the ground and keeping her rapier held horizontally. There was a momentary pause, with the other three letting out a surprised "Huh?!" while registering Shina's presence. As Tager pulled her fist back, Shina let out a sigh of relief and remarked in jest while cracking an awkward smirk "S-Sorry for the sudden entrance, but I can't say I approve of this innocent woman being assaulted like some common thug."

Litchi stood back and with a puzzled stare at Shina's back asked her "W-Who are you?" The girl could sense appreciation beaming at her from that glare, and in turn she glanced back and was completely upfront "Oh! I'm Shina, Shina Aurora!"

"…Why are you here?" Litchi said, struggling a bit to comprehend the girl's presence, some of those feelings likely not helped by how mature her savior looked. Shina slowly rolled her eyes in an upward arc and said in a hasty but soon confident tone "Uhhhh…D-Don't fret about that for now! Just stand back and let me handle this fight."

The girl turned her head to face Tager, finding herself shocked by the fact she had to lift her head up to politely give him eye contact. _"Wow…that's new for me."_ She thought as Kokonoe bluntly inquired to her _"Hey, you're not getting off that easily there missy! Just who the hell are you?! You part of the NOL or something?!"_

With a gentle head shake Shina replied "Nope, no affiliation what-so-ever! I'm just a perky passerby with a pleasant penchant for providing protection!" There was a tense, almost feline growl coming from the other end of the communicator before Kokonoe exclaimed _"You take me for an idiot?! What kind of 'passerby' just jumps into a fight with an ugly red devil?!"_

Tager slowly raised his brows, and Kokonoe hastily commented _"No offense Tager"_ to which he replied hesitantly "…None taken, Kokonoe." As those two shared their little exchange, Shina's eyes widened a little and she realized _"Wait a second, I'm an idiot…No surprise there…But this works out pretty well for me!"_

She lowered her weapon a little and with a casual gesture of her hand out she raised her voice for attention "Hey wait a tic'! You're Professor Kokonoe of Sector Seven, right?" The Professor replied dryly _"Tsk, guess the cat's out of the bag on that one. Yeah, I am…so what?"_

"And you're knowledgeable with Ars Magus and such, yeah?" Shina inquired, trying to stay pleasant even with such an ornery woman. _"Is there a point to this or are you just stalling?"_ Kokonoe bluntly asked.

Shina waved her hand up and remarked "Oh no no no! Nothing like that! It's just that there's something you might be able to help me with. You see, there's this Cauldron in the Kagutsuchi NOL Branch, and right now a Murakumo Unit is being smelted there, so-"

" _Whoa whoa WHOA!"_ Kokonoe caused Shina to pause on the dot, followed by her exclaiming in a flabbergasted tone _"Where the hell did you get any of that info from?! That's some top-secret and you're throwing it around WAY too casually for a 'passerby'!"_

With a forced smirk, Shina raised her hand in front of her face and quietly said "Well you see…the thing is-" Kokonoe wasn't hearing her out and ordered angrily _"Tager! Change of plans! I want you to apprehend this girl so I can interrogate her back at base!"_

Tager hunched over in a battle pose and said without complaint "Roger. Engaging the target now." Shina closed her eyes and let out a dry laugh "Ha ha ha…ha…" before grinning and thinking _"Maaaaybe Kokonoe's got some wax build-up…Eeeeeither way…"_

Drawing her rapier up, Shina hastily proclaimed to the silently observing Litchi "You'll want to stay back doc! I don't want you getting hurt!" Litchi exclaimed "Don't underestimate him! He's incredibly strong!"

Despite Litchi's warnings, Shina only smiled. She had certainly encountered her share of Goliaths to whom she could play the role of David against. "Size ain't everything ma'am! Lemme show you what I got!" Immediately upon saying that, Shina gracefully leaped over Tager as he swung his right hand out in a slicing motion. Getting behind the Red Devil, Shina waggled her rapier in miniature circles until he turned around and acknowledged the purpose of her move with genuine praise "So you would avoid collateral damage…interesting."

Shina rubbed the back of her head and said "Aw schucks, you're too kind." Tager, however, pointed out to her rather calmly "But you've given me the space necessary to stop holding back. I shall end this quickly." He then held his gauntlets together and electricity collided between them before he swiftly split them apart, that act of pulling merging the electricity into a spherical mass that's launched straight at Shina.

The girl went "Whoops!" and then pulled her rapier back to summon a shield of aura as tall as her body. The electricity splashed around it and got onto her body, causing her hair to frizzle up while a tingling sensation swept through her body. _"Whoo! Now this takes me back…!"_ To her, it was a feeling comparable to the days when she'd rustle her feet through the carpet back home to build up static to shock her mother and/or sister.

But now it'd only prove to be an obstacle in her fight, as Tager held his right palm out and Shina started to find herself dragged towards him. "Oh shoot, magnetism!" She blurted with little surprise as her feet were pulled off the ground and sent flying towards Tager's grasp. Quickly innovating, Shina pushed her momentum forward with flight so her feet would be against Tager's palm sooner than he expected, and she kicked back off it and landed with a flip right as his fingers clenched together.

The electricity had left her body by that point, but Tager was not set on letting that be the last time she'd experience it as he quickly took his clenched fist and thrust it forward. The gauntlet was left glowing bright yellow as steam released from the vents surrounding it, but he managed to hit his mark nice and hard. Shina's face squished inward for just a moment before she was sent hurtling away, her body hitting the pavement with a couple bounces before she rolled the rest of the way into the side of a water fountain.

Her back arched and the back of her head hit the stone frame of the fountain, but her response was a mere "Oof!" and the most she suffered was a bit of blood leaking from her nose and probably a bruise on the back of her head later. She stood back up covered in electricity and chuckled "Ya really hold nothing back do ya Iron Tager?" while waving her rapier out at him. The man was humming curiously as he raised his hand up again to try and pull her back in.

This time, Shina glanced back and got an idea from the fountain. _"Heh, now it'll be my turn to use an element, Alex!"_ Flipping the rapier into her other hand, Shina swung her right arm back and guided the water flowing outward through a tube of spinning aura, which gave it enough propulsion to gush straight out at Tager's gauntlet. The presence of water temporarily sent his means of attack on the fritz, and with a hefty grunt he pulled his hand back and started tapping buttons to initiate repairs.

"Well played!" He hastily praised to his opponent, who at the moment took advantage of the slight pull she had gone through in order to zip straight at the giant and assault him with a series of lightweight thrusts of the rapier. Each attack left behind a streak of light off the reflection of the pristine steel, but their effectiveness was miniscule beyond giving Tager reason to have his shirt patched up later.

Tager immediately swung his clenched fists above his head and exclaimed "But your attacks couldn't even tickle a puppy!" before bringing them down with the force of a massive sledgehammer. _"Uh-oh!"_ Shina widened her eyes and quickly dispelled her sword, placing plenty of aura into her arms and crossing them above her head to meet Tager's attack head-on. The ground caved in under her feet upon impact, leaving her standing in a decent sized crater with her aura just somewhat cracked.

Shina held on with a tight grit of her teeth, leaving Kokonoe to let out a shocked gasp _"She held back your attack?! Tager, increase power!"_ Tager replied "With pleasure!" as his gauntlets released a puff of steam upon Shina in the midst of him raising his fists back above his head.

"Output at eighty percent! Take this!" He once again tried to bring his fists down upon Shina, but she slipped out of the way with a graceful flip back as the man smashed the crater down and turned in into a hollow gap leading god knows where. Landing on one hand and then flipping onto her feet, Shina drew her rapier out and a sweat drop or two trickled down her face _"N-Now's probably not the time to see how this plays out…"_

She quickly slapped down on her Gunslinger Drive and transformed, wasting no time in flying forward and assailing Tager's face with her right knee. The man's nose crumpled up and his body got pushed back a couple inches, but after a rough grunt he swung his left hand up and snatched Shina mid-backflip. "Got you! ATOMIC COLLIDER!" He exclaimed before swinging his body around to try and slam her against the ground.

With little time to spare, Shina turned one gun into a hookshot and another into a bubbler, aiming the first at a large lit lantern strung over the town while using the other to create a large aura bubble on the ground to cushion the impact of Tager's attack. As she was slammed down against the bubble it burst, but by then Tager had let go due to noticing the aura hook that just nearly grazed the side of his face.

Thinking the hook was the threat and nothing more, Tager looked back down at Shina and raised his right foot up ready to stomp down. Widening her eyes, Shina pulled hard on her hookshot and ripped the lantern clean from the rope. Tager paused and turned his head just in time for the lantern to collide with his face and shattered, covering it with a flurry of flames. He stamped his foot down beside Shina and the girl quickly spun her weapons around, turning them both with thick barreled laser shotguns that were pressed against the ground.

In the time it took for Tager to brush the flames off Shina had already used a burst of aura to launch herself off the ground, where she kicked the giant in the chest with all her force and managed to send him toppling down. He rolled a few feet away before he struck his feet down and spun around with surprising ease. Propping himself up with one hand, Tager remarked in fascination "Her power's increased…! What manner of Armagus is this?!"

" _Nothing I've ever heard of…Either this is going to the most productive day ever, or the biggest pain in both our asses!"_ Kokonoe replied. Shina stood a few feet away and spun her pistols around her pointer fingers by the triggers, commenting with a gentle smile "It's not an Armagus! This is just the power of aura!"

" _Aura?!"_ Kokonoe blurted out with perhaps a hint of familiarity. Right away she then ordered Tager _"Stop taking this girl lightly Tager! I'm authorizing the use of Distortion Drives!"_ to which he stood upright and said compliantly "Understood."

He then held his gauntlets together ready to fire another sphere. Shina anticipated this and quickly spread her legs and dropped forwardto duck underneath the attack. It was a bit straining on the waist and she tensely grunted to push herself up, but that was all worth it to give her a prime opening on her opponent. She turned her weapons into an over-shoulder rocket launcher and fired a long rocket right into Tager's body, setting off a massive blast of aura that sent the giant skidding back while his feet tore through the ground.

Tager then remarked "Now you're mine!" and slammed his hand against the ground. His gauntlet exerted electricity across the tiles on the ground and managed to reach Shina's body before she could react. The man then stood up and thrust his left hand out, dragging Shina in at a rate faster than she could escape from. He grabbed onto her tightly and then stepped forward, swinging her body around to dizzy her before suddenly launching her skyward. Tager's boots and gauntlets released a mass of steam before he jumped straight after her, exclaiming as he flew "Any last words?!"

"CrapcrapCRAP!" Shina took both her guns together and aimed upward, turning it into a complex rocket launcher with some kind of miniature satellite attached to the end. Right as she fired it off, Tager snatched her out of the air by slamming his beefy right gauntlet on top of her body and began to rapidly descend towards the ground. "GENESIC! EMERALD! TAGER!" Tager would impact in a matter of seconds, forcing Shina to gather a ton of aura behind her back to cushion the damage.

"BUSTER!"

Tager exclaimed that out the very moment he smashed Shina against the ground. With the strength of a thousand men at his fingertips, the giant was able to crack the ground at least a couple dozen feet in all directions. Some of the floor cap-sized, while the cracks traveled up the sides of a couple nearby buildings and broke open the side of the fountain, spilling water down into the cracks.

Shina was pressed down into a deep crater by Tager's palm, the aura behind her shattered and her eyes briefly widened as a sharp cracking pain rippled through her back. The giant started to wrap his fingers around her while remarking "Time to surrender." Shina cracked a wobbly grin and wiggled her right pointer finger skyward.

"Don't count your chickens until they've all finished bombing ya!" The mangled metaphor elicited some confusion from Tager, but as he turned his head to look up he was already face-to-face with a few small missiles of aura. The wide explosions that went off forced Tager to let go of Shina and swing his arms out to try and sway the other missiles away, but they managed to sweep around his reach and strike his back and legs.

The missiles were all coming from the small satellite Shina had launched earlier, with them able to be launched without her guidance. Tager grunted as he staggered and swung around wildly, continuing to fail at repelling them as they overwhelmed him with explosions. With pained grunts, he remarked to Kokonoe "There's too many targets! Uhhh…! I can't get a lock on the weapon like this!"

" _Damn it! You're taking heavy damage Tager! Shit…I hate to say it, but fall back! We'll have to come back and deal with this girl later!"_ Upon hearing Kokonoe's order, Shina disabled the satellite and pulled her head up to see Tager limping forward, his left knee halfway bent and his body letting loose the occasional spark of electricity.

"Errgh…! R-Roger that!" Tager forced himself up and turned around, running away as fast as one of his size could manage. Shina jumped right to her feet and waved a pistol out, saying in a tone mimicking a cowboy "And don't come back varmint!" A sharp pain then jolted through her spine and made her jerk her head back while grimacing her teeth widely.

"Ow! Owowow!" Shina shook her head and dispelled her Gunslinger Drive, turning to her left and noticing that Litchi was glaring at her with a blank expression, her eyes blinking a couple times. Shina struggled to put her hands behind her head, fighting the excruciating pain to trot on over to the woman and tell her "T-There ya go! No need to thank me, just doing what-"

Not even halfway there, her bones started to rhythmically crack like a bunch of walnut shells being opened and she started to wobble forward off-balance. _"Oooh…he really did a number on my back…"_ Before she plopped undignified on the ground, she found a pair of arms wrapping under her shoulders for support. Looking up, she saw Litchi staring at her with a caring, motherly warmth.

"Let me heal you up inside. I'm a doctor, I can treat your injuries." She offered some comfort to her rescuer and did not spend even a second inquiring the 'whos' and 'whys' of the matter. Shina didn't even say anything herself, she was drawn in by the woman's tender heart and her lips sunk into a mellow smile as she was moved onto Litchi's back to be more easily carried into her office for healing…

 _Next Time: Once a Man_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Forbidden Knowledge**

Litchi carried Shina inside of her clinic, and immediately a young girl ran up to the two of them in a panic. She had long, navy-blue hair tied into a bun along with navy-blue eyes. She wears a white Chinese outfit with a black sash tied into a butterfly, complimenting that with short black tights, sandals, and matching gold ring bracelets and an anklet.

"Miss Litchi! Are you ok?! You went out to confront that giant devil and-"

Litchi put on a gentle smile and remarked "Don't worry Linhua, I'm fine. This girl needs medical attention for her back, please go soak some rags in hot water. I'll get her to the bed." Linhua replied with blunt honesty "Sure, but don't forget you still have a couple other clients that need to be tended to."

"Hehe, I haven't forgotten Linhua, but I can't just leave this girl sitting around with her back the way it is."

Linhua smiled and remarked "Alright Miss Litchi, just making sure. I'll get right on that request!" She then turn around and made her way for the nearby sink, where a stack of folded rags were already in place for her to prepare. Shina lifted her head to look at Litchi and tell her with weak appreciation "T-Thank you for doing this…"

"After you fought off Tager like that, how could I not? Try not to strain yourself too much though, ok?" With Litchi's kindness relaxing her mind, Shina gave a terse nod and then let the doctor carry her through her admittedly small clinic. There were three rooms in total: the clinic itself, the waiting room, and what had to have been the office. The clinic had a bed, a few chairs, a medical cabinet, a supply drawer filled with tools like bandages, and urns that carried mixing powders within them. At the end of the room was a wide rectangular window with thin pieces of wood criss-crossing along it, giving it an oriental feel.

The building had a soothing scent thanks to the herb filled lotus lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and Shina ended up closing her eyes and humming slowly and joyously. It was only a matter of seconds before Litchi had brought Shina to the bed, and then laid her down face first upon it. They took it slowly, with Litchi getting a stool at the edge of the bed so Shina's long legs could stretch out all the way.

Shina tried to stretch her arms to reach for the soft, rounded pillow, but doing so just pulled on her back muscles harmfully. She muttered "Ow" a few times before Litchi helped her get the pillow under her chin. Shina's body then melted into a state of utter comfort as she slowly folded her arms under the pillow and let out a drawn out sigh.

Litchi stood over her and gently inquired "Anything I can get for you Miss…Shina, right?" Shina's eyelids slouched together and she replied in a blissful whisper "Nooo, I'm good…" With a smile across her face, the doctor remarked "Then I'll be back in a moment. Need to put on something a little more work appropriate…" She chuckled a bit at her own observation as she walked away.

Shina rested on the bed and her thoughts drifted laxly on through her mind, as though she was about to fall into a state of rest. _"Mmm…I coulda handled that better with Sector Seven. Now I lost my chance to get their help…"_ She made a very wide but docile smile, taking a sniff of the herbal scent in the air before cracking a slight yawn and thinking _"Buuut…I guess this is fine. Least I helped Litchi out…"_

She relaxed for a good thirty minutes until Litchi came back into the room, remarking in a pleased manner "You look very comfortable there. How's your back doing?" Shina creaked her head to the left just a little and saw that Litchi had put on some less revealing clothes. Her vest was now buttoned up, her arms were covered by long draping white sleeves, she tied her hair into a bun, and save for her thighs the legs were covered by her skirt dress. Shina murmured "It hasn't acted up so far…"

Litchi laid a hand on the side of her face and said "That's good. Sorry I wasn't back sooner. I had to patch up a couple people who were waiting in my office while Tager was outside." Shina said laxly "Oooooh don't worry…Ya have your priorities."

The doctor then pulled her short wooden chair over beside the bed and looked at the end table to the left of her. A large glass bowl filled with boiling hot water and rags was there, letting out a light amount of steam. Shina looked at it and commented "Oooh, so Linhua was here…I didn't even notice."

"Before I begin, I think it's only fair to tell you that I'm going to have to take your shirt off." Litchi took the matter respectfully, but would be quite surprised when Shina quickly told her "Goooo right ahead." Litchi blinked a couple times and stammered "O…Okay then. Just stretch your arms up nice and easy…"

Shina followed her directions as best as she could, and Litchi started pulling the shirt off from the back. She took it nice and slow, only running into a couple of "road bumps" along the way. When she was done, it was nicely folded it up and placed aside on a desk. Litchi then took a finger and glided it along the length of Shina's spine. Her touch was smooth like gelatin until she got to the center, when a sharp pain then shot through Shina's nerves.

"OooooooHHHH!" She moaned in pain and Litchi immediately stopped what she was doing and remarked in a slightly worried tone "Your vertebrae's splintered in the center. I can heal it, but you're going to have be resting here for a couple hours."

"T-That's alright. I'm in no rush…" _"Well, that's not true but…I can't be fightin' with a broken back…"_ Shina closed her eyes and rested on her squishy mounds and pillow as Litchi took one of the rags and squeezed the excess liquid from it before resting it atop Shina's back. To help make things less boring, Litchi began a conversation "You have really smooth skin. You must take care of yourself pretty well."

Shina's tone said consistently lax as she replied "I do what I can…Your skin's pretty nice as well Ms. Litchi." The doctor got a light blush in her cheeks and remarked "Hmhmhmm, we women should strive to look presentable, right?"

"Yeaaaaah, guess so…"

When Litchi was done placing three rags across Shina's back, the girl felt all the pain in her body being flushed away by a tidal wave of pure, wet heat. It was like she had gotten into a sauna, only without the presence of steam. Her body became warm all over, and soon enough she would feel a light sweat secrete from her skin. In a state of bliss, Shina inquired to the lady "So what kinda clients have you had today besides me?"

"Well, there was someone who got a pretty nasty cut across his arm from playing in a area with glass shards. I purged the germs from the wound and wrapped the arm up in bandages for safety. The other guy I had in was a little more peculiar though…" Litchi's tone, arm fold under the chest, and glance aside showed an overall perplexed demeanor.

"He had broken his knuckles, but I heard conflicting stories about what happened. He claimed he fought a giant monster made of metal, but the person who asked me to help him said that someone else told them that he had tried to punch through an iron plate to act macho…Then there were some whispers from the people around at the time that the guy was picking a fight with some kid…"

Shina's eyes widened open and she immediately thought _"Oh no, that reaaaally sounds like Alex's work."_ Litchi kept on talking "-but it's been a pretty slow day otherwise. Well…minus that scuffle with Tager."

Ignoring the very high possibility that Alex was causing trouble in town right now, Shina looked to Litchi and asked "How are you doing anyways? He kinda conked you pretty hard there…" The doctor replied with a bit of melancholy in her voice "…I'm fine. I think he was trying his hardest to hold back."

"He seemed like an old friend of yours. How rude of him to attack like that…"

"…He had his orders. He's always been incredibly loyal to the Professor, I can't blame him for fighting."

"…Do you blame Kokonoe instead?"

Litchi paused upon being asked that and rubbed a hand along the side of her head, responding in a delicate but honest tone "…I-I really appreciate your concern, but you really don't need to get wrapped up in all this, Shina." Shina sighed and apologized quickly "I…kinda can't help that."

The doctor closed her eyelids a bit and then mentioned "I've been meaning to ask actually…Why are you even in Kagutsuchi?" Shina stammered out a quiet "E-Eh…?" as Litchi went on to inquire "I've never seen you around before, nor have I ever heard of this 'aura' power you said you are using. Is that a type of Ars Magus?"

Shina slowly shook her head and said "I-It's got nothing to do with that. Honestly the whole thing is pretty…complicated, and you-" _"-really don't need to get wrapped up in all this…"_ That was what Shina wanted to finish her sentence with, but the words just stuck to the tip of her tongue like glue. _"…No, I can't say that to her after all this…"_

So she swallowed those words with a tense gulp and then coughed up something much more honest. "…You see Litchi…I'm not from this world." Litchi's eyes widened slightly with confusion, something that would only become more severe as Shina went on. "And I don't just mean 'not from Kagutsuchi' or something like that…I don't belong to any of the Hierarchical cities. I'm from another Earth entirely from this one."

"…Y-You're an…alien?" Litchi couldn't bring herself to believe that. In a world of magic, even something like an alien seemed far out there. Shina quickly had to tell her "N-No! Well…not exactly, I guess? I mean look at me, I'm as human as you can get, but…"

Shina sighed again and found it really difficulty to keep going. _"I'm not suited for this sorta thing…"_ She contemplated yet continued to talk anyways "Well, I can control the body's exterior energy…or 'aura' as you heard it as. And the way people like me are birthed and raised are different from a normal human's."

She turned her head and saw Litchi staring at her in a different way than before. Gone was that warmth, replaced instead by a tinge of paranoia and nervousness that while scornful from Shina's perspective, was something she unfortunately understood. Even so, the girl closed her eyes and said "I've been traveling with someone else across other worlds to find pieces to an artifact that can help me save my people from the wrath of a tyrant. One of those pieces is currently locked up inside the Cauldron in Kagutsuchi's NOL Branch…"

"…So, yeah…That's all." Shina felt like she had gotten a huge weight off her chest when she was done, but that feeling couldn't last for long considering Litchi was still giving her an odd glare. The doctor started to look downward while rubbing her chin with her arm pressed between her chest. At that moment, Shina wished she could read minds, as the anticipation was gripping at her heart and refused to let go.

"…Thank you for your honesty."

Litchi's response was calm and collected, laced with an understanding of the situation that Shina did not quite expect even knowing that the doctor had a brilliant and caring mind. She stared the doctor in the face as she cracked a tiny smile and said "You helped me out. I don't care if you're from another world."

"…Really?"

"Yes. You're still a kind soul. I-It's just that…" Litchi paused and had a bout of nervous giggling, as though she had difficulty believing that she was about to say what was coming next "It's going to be hard to digest that there's life out there besides our own."

Shina's eyes lit up and she partook in Litchi's humored tone by mentioning "Heh, you do kinda get used to it after a while." Litchi smiled bright and said "Never would've expected that I'd be the first person to make first contact with extraterrestrial life. What a way to spend New Year's Eve, huh?"

Shina nodded and rested her chin back down on the pillow, her mind slipping back into a state of ease. As Litchi peeled the hot rags off her back she softly inquired "There's still one thing I don't get though…How DO you know what's inside the Library's Headquarters?"

Whispering a swift but honest answer "I've done my research…" Shina tilted and laid the left side of her head down on the pillow. Her body still felt warm even with the rags off, and her muscles felt like they could melt into goo at any given moment. With her being so moist and bare on the bed, she started to feel like a slug.

Litchi splashed the rags down into the bowl and got off her chair, creaking open the doors of her closet and reaching up for the supplies on the top shelf. Her grunts to reach the back could be heard for a little bit, as could the jingle of a vial about to fall off. "Ah..!" Litchi gasped, but the lack of the sound of glass crashing meant she was just in time to save it. She then turned around and went back to her chair, popping the cork off the vial she had and hovering it over the center of Shina's back.

The powder fell upon her skin like a thin blanket of snow, sending a brief chill shooting up her spine like a rocket. Though that feeling was hammered into her brain, Shina's relaxation was only briefly perturbed, as the powder mixed with the sweat on her back and bubbled into a gelatinous goop that was absorbed by the pores in her skin. Then, Litchi leaned forward and cross her hands over the girl's back, murmuring to herself a magical incantation that caused a row of magic glyphs to imprint themselves on Shina's back.

"There, now your back should be back to normal in no time." Litchi spoke with a little self-pride while wiping some sweat off her forehead. She then got off her chair and remarked "Let me get you a blanket now. Don't need customers coming in and going ga-ga over a half-naked girl." Shina giggled playfully as the thought entered her mind while also having a blush in her cheeks.

Once Litchi covered her up in a blanket, she decided to take a nap so the doctor could focus on business. The next hour passed by in the blink of an eye, with Litchi coming to check up on Shina again. She pulled the blanket up by the top and peeked under while asking "Do you feel any difference?" The girl moved her arms up and down like she was flapping her wings and said "Feels pretty good to me!" with her energetic voice having returned in full force.

"Want to try and move around a bit?" Litchi offered while standing up and reaching for the blinds. Shina's response was a swift but hard nod that swung some of her hair before her eyes, which she pushed away with a puff of air a moment after. Litchi shut the blinds just enough to keep light from being absent, while giving her company the security to get up and be able to put her shirt back on.

Litchi closed her eyes as she handed the shirt off to Shina, who turned around and sprung upright, slowly pulling her arms and head through the sleeves and collar respectively until the shirt fit snugly around herself. She then kicked right off the bed and didn't even feel an itch coming from her back. Grabbing her right shoulder, Shina pivoted her arm around and let out a high-pitched, impressed whistle.

"Can't remember the last time I felt this good! Thanks a bunch doc!" Shina reached out and took Litchi's hands, giving them a swift few shakes as the woman let out a flustered but thankful "Y-You're welcome!" as her face struggled to not look surprised.

As Shina snapped her arms back beside her hips she gave one terse nod and smiled brighter than the sun. "You gotta let me do something to repay ya Litchi!" She proclaimed with abundant appreciation. Litchi, swept up in a whirlwind of confusion, swiftly pointed out "Repay ME? You don't have to do that, I was the one repaying YOU."

Shina curled the left of her lips up and projected some guilt from her eyes towards Litchi "But you're a doctor, it's not good for your business if ya don't profit from your work." Litchi firmly stared back at her and insisted with kindly grace "Nonsense. I won't accept even a penny from you."

Shina slowly drew a pointer finger up and quietly asked "…How about half a penny?" Litchi chuckled and responded in a more jolly tone "No, that's quite alright. But before you go, there's one more thing I wanted to ask."

"Oh? What's up?" Shina peppered her inquiring retort with a dash of perkiness, while Litchi laid a hand on the side of her head and stated "If you're from another world, why did the Professor recognize your kind of power?"

"Huh? Wait, what're you talking-" Shina had to take a step back in her thoughts to remember that yes, Kokonoe did specifically blab out the word 'aura' with some degree of familiarity. At which point the girl then laid her hands behind her head and hastily mumbled "Oh yeah guess she did do that thing didn't she?"

Shina shrugged her shoulders and gave a brief grumble of "idk", leading Litchi into trying to push her mind a little more by asking "That DOESN'T strike you as suspicious?" Shina turned around and gaze at the ceiling, answering with some puzzled sounding honesty "I can wrack my brain as much as you Litchi, but it's not common practice for Aurians to go space-faring. How Kokonoe knows is anyone's guess but hers, and she ain't going to be receptive to spilling the beans now."

"Not like she would even if you hadn't beaten up Tager…" Litchi whispered with a hint of scorn in her voice, following up with a sigh as Shina turned back around to look her in the eyes. The woman shook her head a bit, twirling a few strands of hair around her pointer finger and then giving it a gentle tug. Shina didn't even have to check her aura to realize something was bothering her, but it was probably not right to pester her about it even though she knew just who she was thinking of.

Instead he folded her arms under her chest and waggled her fingers along her biceps. _"Kokonoe knows about aura…The only other Aurian who coulda come around at a time she's been alive would be Gravitus, right?"_ Shina stared ahead with a ghastly white in her eyes, her body embraced by a haunting chill. The front door then started to open and it's bell rang gently. Shina shifted around and stared in that direction, watching as a shadow crept along the wall outside. _"N-No…he couldn't have possibly…f-followed me…"_ Her head slowly pulled back as her expression contorted into a state of fright, and her arms retreated defensively towards her chest.

Some tussling could be heard coming from the waiting room, with Linhua screaming angrily "H-Hey! Don't go in there!" doing little to remove the fear gripping Shina's mind. Then the screen door separating the rooms swung open, the figure beyond leaping straight towards the two with Shina thrusting her right hand out and yelling "GET AWAY FROM ME!" while shooting a blast of aura from her palm.

"BOOBIE LA-" A shrill and overjoyed voice was forced to let out a surprised "Meow?!" as their face was assaulted straight on by Shina's attack and they went tumbling back along the floor, bowling down a couple of chairs and ending up arched against the wall with their legs pointing up.

"Oh my gosh! Tao!" Litchi exclaimed in shock and ran ahead. The suffocating tension was cut free from Shina's mind as she opened her eyes and peeked past the width of her hand to see a young catgirl sprawled out in the waiting room. They had brown skin and long blond hair tied into two massive braids, with a black cat tail sticking out from behind their beige-colored, cat-eared hoodie that had paw-like sleeves.

Shina let out a frightened gasp and quickly stammered "O-Oh my god! I just killed Taokaka!" She scrambled out into the waiting room and stood behind Litchi, who had bent down to check on the poor catgirl. Taokaka had a weird pitch black face with her mouth currently a small white dot and her eyes spinning around while given the shape of lines curled into spirals.

"M-Meow…" She let out a slurred moan while Litchi looked down at her and said "Tao? Are you ok?! Say something!" Shina bent down beside Litchi and looked the cat in the eyes, praying that she would soon wake up. In a second, she'd probably not have wished for that at that particular moment, as Tao's eyes popped back into red dots and her mouth turned into a "v" and with a mischievous meow she took her paws and poked the front of Litchi and Shina's breasts.

As they both felt their chests jiggle, Litchi blushed while Shina's whole face grew incredibly red, and that shade only grew darker as Tao flipped onto her feet and wiggled her paws atop their chests like she was batting at a playtoy. "Nya, Tao's much better now!" With the vigor of a young child, Tao pulled her arms back and alternated hopping on each foot in joy. Litchi sighed and stood up, smiling to the cat as she said "Thank goodness you're ok."

But then she got very stern as she glared down at Tao and told "But you HAVE to stop pouncing in like that." Tao looked up and innocently laid a paw before mouth, which had now become a somewhat drooling white oval "Awww, but Boobie Lady…Tao hadta tell you something reeeeeeeaally important…"

Tao blinked upon realizing that she was looking straight at Shina, who had turned to the side with her face still red and her pupils shrunk to tiny dots. Her lips were pressed together and she wiggled her pointer fingers around each other before her chest. Tao's mouth turned into a small red triangle as she inquired "Huh? …Two Boobie Ladies? Tao's confused, meow!"

Litchi shook her head and mentioned "Tao, this is Shina. She's a patient I just took care of today." Tao's eyes closed into slits and her tail wagged back and forth. "Sheena…? Shiina…? Gah, Tao's head hurts! Tao's just going to call you…Boobie Jr.!" Shina continued to avert her gaze away from Tao, but now she was pressing her fingertips together.

Tao's eyes perked open and with a fanged, crescent grin she asked "Boobie Lady…Tao thinks Boobie Jr.'s broken…" Litchi tapped on Shina's right shoulder while asking "Are you ok? You screamed back there, and-"

Shina jolted around and with her face looking the same save for her shaking it back and forth she insisted "I-It's fine! I-I'm ok!" Her blush started to fade out around that time, and she put her arms under her chest while puckering her lips and glancing to the left at Tao. The catgirl shivered, as though she was being assaulted by a barrage of icy daggers. Shina let out a sigh and thought _"N-No…It's alright Shina, there's no way Gravitus coulda chased you all the way out here…"_

Shina then forced a smile and tilted her head, reminding Litchi "So umm…didn't Tao said she had something to show ya?" Litchi turned to Tao, who was looking around with a cheeky but ultimately harmless grin on her face until she caught the doctor's attention. "Oh, meow! Tao almost forgot! Boobie Lady, Tao's gonna become a vigilante!"

Litchi gasped in surprise and her next sentence was filled with concern "A vigilante? Are you sure about that Tao?" Tao's mouth became a thin circle as she said with innocent honesty "Not really! But the Kaka Elder said that it could help the Kaka Clan out if I hunted down Rawrgna the…umm…Ummm…" As her eyes squeezed shut into a pair of wide Xs, Litchi widened her eyes in disbelief and said "Ragna the Bloodedge? Is he actually in Kagutsuchi?!"

"Meow…! Yep! …Nyah, but Tao heard that Rawrgna was already captured by someone else!" This news grabbed Shina's attention too, and in time with Litchi they asked the cat "Huh? Who?!" Tao winced with droopy, curved eyes and exclaimed "Tao don't know! Tao only knows that it's some boy who explodes a lot!"

" _Oh my god it's Alex."_ Shina's face went absolutely pale and livid with shock, her mouth drooping so low you could get a clear look at her uvula and the tops of all her teeth. She had to turn away from Litchi just to get a chance to rub her hand along the front of her face, pulling her embarrassed features down as she looked up and muttered "I KNEW this was going to happen…This is why you listen to your gut Shina!"

Tao tilted her head and muttered "Boobie Jr.'s talking to herself…It's weirding Tao out!" The cat then started vibrating her head back and forth vigorously for a good couple seconds before digging into her hoodie and pulling out another poster. This one depicted a black, gooey creature with a round white face complete with three round holes. Litchi stared at it and went completely silent as Tao said to her "So instead of Rawrgna, Tao's going to go hunt down Squiggly!"

Litchi immediately exclaimed "Tao! Have you found out where he's located?!" Tao pinned back against the wall out of surprise while her eyes squinted into slits. "W-Wow…! Boobie Lady's serious! U-Ummm…Tao heard Squiggly was in the upper levels of Kagutsuchi!"

Litchi turned to the silently observing Linhua and exclaimed "Watch the clinic Linhua! I'm going to go find him!" She then made a beeline for the door, brushing against Shina's arm on her way out. Shina blinked and then stammered "W-Wait a minute…! Litchi!" She then ran after her, leaving Tao blinking towards the door with Linhua while remarking perkily "Meow…! Tao's frazzled!"

Shina swung her head left and right but couldn't find any signs of Litchi. Closing her eyes tightly, she instead locked on to her roughened aura signature and turned her body sharply to the right. Breaking into a sprint, Shina had to deal with a near-tripping experience before she was able to cleanly chase after her. _"Come on feet, keep this pace up!"_ She was worried quite deeply for Litchi's safety and ran like the dickens to try and catch up with her.

Litchi was surprisingly agile herself, able to make great leaps and bounds to reach shortcuts across Kagutsuchi that most people wouldn't be able to use. Shina grit her teeth and kept following after with her own jumps. Eventually, as the sun had long since set, Shina managed to catch up with Litchi close to the very top of Kagutsuchi. Along the way, the two had started to run across a trail of black, gooey dots.

"L-Litchi! Hey! Wait up Litchi!"

Now at a point where she was sure her voice would reach, Shina waved her hand out and was heaving to keep her breath steady. Her leg muscles were pounding sorely against the skin walls that contained them, and she felt she wouldn't be surprised if she found blisters on her heels later. Litchi turned around at the top of the staircase, now in her more loose looking outfit, and swung her staff towards Shina.

Shina jerked back and swung her hands beside her face while the tip of the staff pressed against her nose. Litchi widened her eyes and put her weapon down, asking hastily "S-Shina? What are you doing up here?" The girl leaned forward with saggy eyelids and arms limply hanging beside her hips, panting profusely as she asked "H-Have you…ever considered…b-becoming a gymnast…? …O-Or a trackstar?"

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and stood upright, letting out one last puff of relief before she looked Litchi in the eyes and telling her "You just bolted off without a word after Tao whipped that poster out. Soooo…I thought I'd come and help you out with whatever it is you're doing!" Shina cracked a smile, but Litchi just looked at her and swung her left arm out while being brutally honest "I appreciate the offer, but this isn't like with Tager. This time…this HAS to be my fight."

"But you're going after a criminal, right? That's pretty dangerous business…" Shina remarked softly. Litchi closed her eyes and whispered "He's not a criminal…" As the girl looked at her straight on, Litchi rested her staff beside her hip and laid a hand atop her chest.

"…Ok, I'll tell you the truth. But you have to promise me you'll turn around and go back to the clinic."

Shina put her hands behind her back and leaned to the left, kicking a foot up while her eyes were partway shut "Y-You're putting me in a tough spot here Litchi…" The woman begged in response "Promise me!" and Shina jolted back and stammered "O-Okay…Ok! I will, I promise!"

Litchi then slowly turned around and started to walk out past the stairs, staring up at the moonlit sky as Shina followed close behind. "Before I was a doctor in Kagutsuchi…I worked for Sector Seven alongside Tager and the Professor. I was assigned to the Seithr division by the Professor after submitting a hundred page theory on the inner workings of the Boundary, and it was there I met a man by the name of Lotte Carmine…Though, everyone tended to call him Roy."

"He was a genius…The Professor even took him in as an apprentice. But most of the time we worked together, trying to come closer and closer to the truth hidden within the Boundary…The Azure Grimoire. Roy was a nice guy, but he always had confidence issues when it came to the Professor…He strived to better himself, to discover something that she could never figure out…"

Litchi paused with a sigh before continuing in a more melancholic tone "Eventually, that drive to learn caused him to risk exposure to the Boundary. He told me that he just had to learn the truth, that he had to prove himself to his colleagues…especially the Professor. His mind started to break down, his body was getting weaker, and I…I-I kept pushing him to keep trying his best."

She let out a sniffle, while Shina observed her with eyelids sagging slowly down. Litchi shook her head and pushed forward the best she could "Soon enough, Roy was transformed by the exposure to the Boundary. He lost his body and mind completely and became this black, blob-like creature that everyone in Kagutsuchi is calling 'Arakune'…"

Litchi stood there for a good few seconds and looked towards the sky. If one could look at her eyes, they'd see the moon's reflection coming off her teardrops. She planted her staff on the ground and ended her story off as best she could "After that…I quit Sector Seven and moved out to Kagutsuchi. I figured it was my duty to do something about Arakune…about Roy. Even if it means killing him…"

When Litchi was done, she lowered her head and didn't say another word until a pair of arms suddenly wrapped under her shoulders and chest. Then she flinched and mumbled a short "H-Huh…?" while turning her head to see Shina giving her a hug, her eyes shut and the side of her head nestled against the back of her neck.

"Litchi, I-I know I made that promise but…Please. Let me help you."

Litchi's body started to tremble, and she lifted a hand and gently laid them atop Shina's fingernails. With a wet sniffle, she yelled "I-I can't drag other people into this! My mistake already cost Roy his body, his sanity! I don't need it costing people their lives as well!"

Litchi flipped her hand around and made a sharp turn, slapping the side of Shina's right elbow to force her back. With tears flying from her eyes Litchi exclaimed "If there's no way to cure him, then I HAVE to kill him!" Shina stared into the face of this vulnerable woman and for a moment saw only a reflection of herself standing in front of her. But, unlike with Noel, Shina refused to let things with Litchi end in failure.

"Litchi…You haven't exhausted all options, not yet. After all, up until now, you've never someone with the power of aura at their disposal." Shina placed a hand against her chest and beat it twice, giving Litchi a serious glare. The woman's mouth draped open in confusion and she stammered "Y-You can…do something?"

Shina nodded her head and said "There's no way to bring back his body, at least not the way it was before but…Roy's soul still has to be inside of that blob somewhere. I can't imagine Arakune being able to maintain even the slightest degree of stability otherwise. If we can find his soul, I might be able to pull it out and contain it, then all you'd have to do is ask Kokonoe to make him a new body to inhabit. I don't think she's so heartless that she'd deny you there."

"A-Are you sure…?" Litchi had to get twice the confirmation, and that manifested as a firm smile and nod from Shina. The doctor cracked her own weak smile and whispered "T-Thank you…I-I'm sorry for trying to scare you off when all you've been trying to do is help me."

"Heheh…Like I said, I kinda can't help that."

Shina then took a couple steps forward and said to Litchi "Now all we have to do is find him." The woman remarked in confusion "I-I thought he'd be up here…His trail led to the staircase but suddenly stopped."

"…Hmmm…" As Shina was thinking about that, she and Litchi turned their heads towards the NOL HQ's front doors…Well, if any front doors were still there. Litchi widened her eyes while Shina had a close-eyed, exasperated expression.

"…Di-Did…someone actually break into-"

"Litchi, when we're done here…I proooobably should tell you AAAAAAALLL about my friend." Shina gave her a couple pats on the back while trying to turn her back around. But as they looked on ahead there was something slowly starting to crawl up the wall. It started off with a few drops of black goop, then a dark yellow, bony, three-pronged claw dug itself into the floor and began dragging a giant mass of that black goop onto the floor.

Litchi and Shina stepped back as the sludge dribbled onto the floor, secreting from the "gullet" of this grotesque being. Shina's eyes then widened as a certain, vile purple aura began to surrounding the blob. _"Oh no…this is…!"_ Then the creature pulled itself all the way up, it's body convulsing uncontrollably as though some things or some ONES were squirming around inside. Litchi and Shina started to look up, realizing that this blob was at least twelve feet tall as it stood right now.

The blob lifted it's "head" up, revealing a round white face plate with two rounded eyes and a smaller rounded mouth. The only thing that remained of it's humanity was the vague curving of the creature's shoulders. As the creature's eyes glowed red, it stared down at the two and stretched out three bony talons on each side of it's body, violently releasing a barely understandable gargle of words "Az-e…Gi-e m- th- Azu-…!"

 _Next Time: Weak Executioner_


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: I Cannot Let Go of You**

"R-Roy…? Oh god, what's happened to you?!" Litchi was freaking out a little at the towering sight of that monstrous mess that was once a man, and Shina in turn remarked as that creature twisted it's 'face' around and stared them down "Ummm…I don't think he's supposed to be this big, right?"

"No, he wasn't this big when he fled from Sector Seven…" Litchi could barely speak out as she stared straight up into Arakune's face, which had bent down to meet her in the eyes, as though in an intrigued trance. Litchi froze up, her pure skin now noticeably riddled with goosebumps as she murmured hopefully "R-Roy…? Do…do you recognize me?"

Arakune's 'face' turned left and then twisted to the right, it's head crumpling into a screw-like spiral for a few seconds before it started to pull back while chattering erratically "Gi gi gi gi!" Then it started to pincer it's talons towards Litchi, forcing Shina to charge in and tackle her to the ground before her body was sliced into six grotesque pieces. The two took a tumble a few feet away from the monster, with Shina laying on top of an unsteadily breathing Litchi.

Shina quickly got up and slapped down on her Gunslinger Drive, transforming and whipping her pistols beside her head once she emerged from the light. "He's not gonna recognize you in that state Litchi." Litchi's eyelids sagged as she slowly stood herself up and laid a hand on her chest. "It was worth a try…" She then murmured.

The upper half of Arakune's body twisted back into place before it swerved to the left and twisted it's 'face' around, as though using what little sanity it had to ponder the reason these two people were here. "Y-u no- Az-r-…Az-re h-e…G-t -n w- -f -zu-e!" Such incoherency was both unnerving and pitiful from Shina's point of view, and she solemnly frowned as she used the scouter to try and peg the soul that had to be buried within the monster's mass.

However, her efforts came up negative, as the purple aura was blocking any distinguishable signature within him. She let out an audible sigh and was hesitant to tell Litchi "I can't find anything…That pesky evil aura is in the way." Litchi commented in bewilderment "Huh? That's aura…? I thought that was excess Seithr seeping out of his body…"

Shina shook her head a couple times and peered over her shoulder, unaware of the nonchalant expression she put on as she explained "My friend and I have been dealing with this on our travels. Some enigmatic jerk is powering up beings that get in our way with this aura." She then looked ahead at Arakune and remarked "I don't think I need to tell ya this Litchi, but be REALLY careful. We're gonna have to rough Roy up a bit so we can find his soul."

There was a pause for a few seconds as Shina stared up at Arakune, who was eerily silent as the moonlight beaming down only added to his ghastly form. Then, Litchi stood beside Shina and swung her staff beside her hip, remarking with a somber valiance "I know…I already told you I'd do anything to save him."

Arakune let out another echoing "Gi gi gi gi!" and then splashed his entire body against the ground, changing into a shark's head and charging at the two while the tearing up floor acted like a surface of water. Shina jumped straight to the left as Arakune launched himself up and opened his bone fanged jaw wide, Litchi directly in his path.

The moment she landed, Shina widened her eyes and flipped her guns backwards beside her hips, turning them into shotguns while thinking _"What is she doing?!"_ at Litchi's stationary stance. She would find that she'd need to have a little more faith in Litchi's seemingly rash behavior as the woman was agile enough to leap above Arakune with a graceful flip as his body crashed and spread out into a bubbling puddle. Shina stopped right as her fingers were on the triggers and watched the doctor go to work.

Litchi then flipped her staff upwards and a little kickstand morphed into place at the bottom, allowing her to kick it straight down towards Arakune's 'face'. However, monster pulled it away before the staff could hit before then moving back, his body rising up into it's original state. Litchi dropped to the ground and swung her right arm out, causing her staff to kick off the ground and run at Arakune like a spinning fan.

Arakune split his body into two curved halves, his 'face' stuck on the left side and thus in the perfect spot for Shina to rush in and blast it with a point-blank shotgun attack. Arakune's halves were forced back together, the mass bending backwards towards the edge. But after a hollow screech, Arakune bounced back and leaped off the ground like a spring, spreading the front of it's body out like a parachute to try and envelop Shina.

As the light fled from Shina's eyes, she aimed a rifle upward with just a second left to fire before it'd be too late. Thankfully, Litchi slid beside her and with her staff coated in a greenish, flowery energy she jabbed it straight into the center of Arakune's descending mass and forced him back. The creature then tried to spread itself around the umbrella of energy released from the tip of the staff, gargling in frustration all the while.

Litchi glanced over her shoulder and said with a firm stare "I have your back Shina." Shina tapped the rifle she had on the side of her head and said merrily "Aw shucks, I'm supposed to be the one havin' your back!" She then quickly put her serious face back on and with a flip of the rifle around her hand she grasped and thrust it upward to fire a piercing shot past the fading energy barrier. The shot ripped through Arakune's form and left a streak of aura across the night sky for just a moment.

The monster reeled back and wrung his body in a thin, tightened twist, then he unfurled itself out into a square blanket with the 'face' planted firmly at the top that floated over the two, wiggling as though the wind flowed underneath it. Shina and Litchi widened their eyes as a large shadow was cast over them, yet they wouldn't get much time to think on it as parts of the creature's underside bubbled, signifying the release of viciously thrusting, bony talons from his body.

"Whoa now!" Shina quickly exclaimed while leaping back off the ground, where she then landed on her back and started to slide away, using aura on her shoulder blades for protection. Litchi was briefly stuck in the center of the talons, where she swung her staff around to smash through them so she could follow Shina in her escape. The talons followed at a hastening pace, coming down in entire rows and piercing through the solid stone ground.

Shina thrusts her arms up and rapid-fired pistol shots at Arakune's 'face', but it just ducked into the safety of it's gelatinous mass and bobbed and weaved past every shot that broke through it's body. Shina pouted and pulled her guns back, poking her head up and noticing Litchi wasn't moving fast enough away from the talons, as a couple of them pinned her down by the cloth spread out past her backside.

Shina hastily thought _"Oh shoot!"_ and kicked to her feet, leaping forward and sticking her pistols to her feet, transforming them into a pair of boots with miniature gun barrels at the bottom. She whipped one leg out with the fluidity of a kung-fu master and blasted apart the talons holding Litchi down with a mighty, ammo-loaded strike. The doctor took a second to pull the rest of her cloth and making a run for it as the next row of talons came crashing down.

Shina spun around by firing a shot from that same boot and used the momentum to deliver a crescent kick that tore through the talons in her way. With the path clear, she forced her legs down and unloaded a round from both boots to rocket to safety past the scope of Arakune's body. Landing with a rough roll on the ground, Shina managed to twirl around and grind to a halt to the left of Litchi, looking up as Arakune changed yet again.

This time, the blob plummeted to the ground in the form of a massive droplet, splattering his self all across the ground until he was a violently splashing puddle. In that form Arakune started madly cackling something sounding like 'Insects' as soon enough a swarm of bizarre and unseen types of those skitter-y scampers began to come flying out of his body. With the air filled with the sounds of ridged buzzing, those insects flew straight at the two one group after another.

Shina's body shook and she stuck her tongue for a moment, letting out a fearful "Eaaaugh…" before she took her pistols and fired as quickly as she could upon the bugs, making certain that she'd hit her mark and leave their putrid guts splattered across the ground. But there were simply too many for Shina to handle alone. As she looked to Litchi, she saw the woman waving her arms before her chest to make a series of seals.

"Let me handle this one! All Green!" She then planted her left foot on the ground and took a sideways stance, leaving afterimages in her wake as she poured her inner energy into an invisible thrust from her open palm. Suddenly, a blast of lotus-green fire erupted from the ground and seared through the remaining bugs that tried to come their way. Litchi kept the stance she had after as she peered over her shoulder and gave a nod towards Shina.

The girl smiled and picked up the cue, following up on Litchi's efforts by backflipping into the air and transforming her pistols and a much more effective rocket launcher, which she used to lock onto Arakune's face in the center of the recompiling puddle. "Try and dodge this one!" She proclaimed while licking the circumference of her lips and pulling the trigger. An aura rocket shot out, with Arakune trying to retract his 'face' into himself to escape, but the rocket just made a sharp drop into it's lower body and blew up on contact there.

His mass went splattering all over the place thanks to a large, explosive plume of aura, and Litchi ended up thinning her staff so she could spin it around herself and easily deflect any incoming goop. All the while, she stared blankly ahead at the sight of something bright and blue flickering into view where Arakune once stood. "Y-You didn't kill him, did you?" She was hesitant to inquire. Shina slowly lowered her smoking launcher and put the scouter on, staring at the floating ember that manifested itself into existence.

Looking at it for a few seconds, Shina shook her head and yelled out "It's alright! That must be Roy's soul over there!" Litchi's barely audible gasp as she placed her hands across her mouth brought a smile to Shina as she then turned her launcher into a bubbler-type weapon and held it steady before her chest, telling Litchi merrily "Lemme just get him into a niiice little bubble and-"

A tendril of goop then lashed up before Shina's squinted line of sight, and as she poked her head up slightly it strung itself around her wrists and jerked her arms down with great force. Feeling her muscles strained, Shina grunted out in shock "W-What?!" only for her voice to become drowned to a muffle as another tendril split around the back of her head and stuck itself around her mouth. Her heart started racing and she flailed her legs wildly, but the tendrils just kept their distance from even the tips of her feet until they could bind her at the kneecaps and ankles.

Her arms were forced apart, the bones in her shoulders undergoing a painful crack as her body was laid horizontal and dragged downward into the ravenous, bony maw that Arakune had amassed himself back into. Shina's eyes shrank and her skin went pale as she squirmed her head left and right and kept up a muffled yell as the goop moistened across her skin, as though this was the creature's way of salivating hungrily.

"De-ur…D-vo-r! Mu-t con-u-e a-l! M-s- kn-w…al-! EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!" The creature's maddened cackling was of no reassurance, nor was the way it snapped it's teeth together. Shina just barely turned her head to see Litchi alternating between staring at her and the soul of Roy. The doctor focused more on Roy's soul as time slowly passed, unaware of the goop spreading along the ground around her. For just a brief moment, Shina saw Litchi bite her lower lip with the moonlight producing sparkles off of her teardrops. She mouthed the words "I'm sorry" and then turned around to make a run for Roy's soul. Yet before she could even come close, Arakune's goop lashed up from both sides of the soul and wrapped it in a stringy mesh that would soon drag it back towards it's main body.

Litchi swung her arms out, attempting to intercept the soul in an embrace, but it just passed right through her and left her arms cuddling only the empty air under her chest. Then she just stood there, her eyes dripping out just a couple tears. Shina, mere seconds from becoming another of Arakune's meals, pushed all the aura she could into her mouth and mixed it with the desperate sounds rising forth from her throat. Closing her eyelids tightly, Shina ripped through Arakune's facial embrace with a series of loud, echoing waves of aura that said just one thing.

" **LITCHI!"**

This plea was enough to snap Litchi back to reality, and she sharply turned around with a few flustered, unintelligible stammers coming forth from her mouth. Shina's mouth was quickly bound shut, and Arakune was a couple feet away from finishing her off. Litchi then flared her eyes open and screamed "ROY, THAT'S ENOUGH!"

And for a second, the monster stopped moving entirely. This gave Litchi the opening she needed to call her staff back and erect it like a pole, which she then leaped on top of for support. Swinging around with her sleeves waved gallantly under the moonlight, Litchi then rocketed into the air and bathed in the pearl white of the moon's presence, drawing Arakune's attention away from the offensive stance her shadow moved into.

Then she came speeding down like a comet, those delicate, long legs of hers carrying the force of a speeding train within them. That same force went crashing into the front of Arakune's body, disrupting his form by forcing his entire being back into a bulge boiling out from his backside. As Shina was freed from his grotesque grasp, Litchi did not stop there as her inner energies flared forth in the form of a blue-violet veil shaped perfectly like her body and she started kicking her legs out at a blurring pace.

Shina landed on the ground and spat the dark moisture from her mouth, rubbing any excess off with her right hand as she stared up at Litchi. She had to be performing at least thirty kicks per second as her legs were creating so much friction that she was leaving a trail of fire in her wake. Arakune was being dragged through the stairs leading up to the NOL HQ, screaming all the while as torn up pieces of concrete ripped through his body.

Litchi grit her teeth and kept the attack up until she was nearing the top of the stairs, where she then flipped over his body and pulled her left leg up as high as she could, slamming it straight into his farce of a face with the explosive force of dynamite. Arakune went rocketing back towards the bottom, with Litchi landing and exclaiming "Your turn, Shina!"

Shina perked her brows up and fully regained her grasp on the battle. Quickly putting her gun boots back on, she fired a barrel on the back of the heel and took a page out of Noel's book by smashing Arakune in the 'face' with a high-rising crescent kick. At first giving that monster the stink-eye for earlier, the moment where her sole was pressed against his 'face' brought a smile to her face and a feeling of intense satisfaction.

The kick then launched Arakune into the air, and with a flip around Shina landed safely on her feet and stood sideways. Turning her guns into copies of Bolverk, she aimed them diagonally at the ground and then looked up, summoning a series of walls in certain places in the air. Arakune pushed his 'face' to the bottom and dove straight down, forming a teeth filled mouth that let out a hellish screech. Shina smiled wider and pulled down on the triggers, firing off two bullets that ricocheted off the ground and then off the walls Shina had set up to pierce right through Arakune's mass.

The creature was pinned in place by that attack, and kept being pierced through by more bullets that Shina fired at a steady pace. The only movement she made during this time was to adjust the angle that her shots would fire, ensuring that Arakune would be trapped continuously. And he couldn't just wiggle a part of himself free from it either, as there were too many bullets coming in.

At the top of the stairs, Litchi used all her leg strength to leap forward, swiping her right hand back to call her staff to her. She intercepted it right above Arakune and Shina by standing atop it, and then she dived down while commanding the staff to rotate rapidly like a drill. Shina flipped back and broke the aura so Litchi could come in unopposed.

She dragged Arakune to the ground and dug into him with her drilling staff, sending parts of his mass splattering every which way. Before he became paste across the floor, Arakune ripped away from the staff, his remaining mass rolling across the floor until he was particularly close to the edge of this city's level. He dragged the parts he lost back into his body and stood under the moonlight, his head wiggling around as he gargled out angrily "N-! -o! Gi-e me t-e AZ-RE! G-VE M- TH- A-RE!"

As he violently slammed his body to the left and right on the ground, Litchi landed off her staff and laid a hand on her chest, whispering in pity "Oh Roy…I'm so sorry…" She then widened her eyes and glanced back at Shina, who held a pistol under her right thumb while waving casually out at her.

There was silence from Litchi as she stared at the ground and held her staff beside her body. When the woman decided upon an apology of "S-Shina, I'm so ashamed that I-" she couldn't even get halfway through before Shina remarked "I don't think now's the time to be feeling guilty Litchi." She then pulled her eyes back and wagged her head back and forth a little before continuing with a little disdain "I mean suuuure I could've died but…"

With a laid back smile the girl mentioned "I totally understand why you did that" and Litchi's mouth was left agape. She then gave a terse nod and faced Arakune, who was starting to reel back and open the center of his body to reveal a series of grotesque talons that looked much like a broken ribcage. As the creature released an echoing roar, Litchi composed herself and asked "Can you see Roy's soul within that abomination?"

Shina nodded her head and remarked "It's trapped somewhere in the center of his body. Think you can make an opening for me to pull it out?"

Behind Arakune, a massive wall of bugs flew into view, obscuring even the night sky. Litchi stared straight at that swarm and swung her staff out, calmly replying "If you have my back, then yes…I know I can." Shina cracked one the widest smiles she's ever had and said "Well, in that case…"

She threw her guns out and transformed them into two standing gatling turrets beside Litchi. The ropes on her wrists attached to the back of the guns and not only fueled them aura ammunition, but got the barrels spinning as well. "Go for it!" Shina exclaimed, and right away Litchi took off like a bullet as a spray of aura rapidly fired from the turrets and mowed down the insects that came charging after them.

However, there wasn't enough coverage for all of them, especially those close to the center. That left things up to Litchi, who swung her staff around in broad arcs to bash away the insects. Arakune sent a few tendrils forward to try and grab Litchi, but with a heart burning with a desire so strong to save him she wouldn't find herself being stopped by such meager obstacles and leaped over all the lashing tendrils. She kept her staff planted below her right foot and spun it around like a fan to break apart any other bugs and tendrils that came her way. She then made a perfect landing right at the bottom of Arakune's form. The creature bent his head forward and looked right into Litchi's eyes from above. She lifted her head up and gave him a short but smiling glare.

"It's ok Roy…"

She raised a hand and laid it on the side of the monster's face as the bottom of his body spread out towards Litchi's feet. She cracked a tiny smile one second, but then the next one she took both her hands and gathered a very high amount of her Chi between the palms. Thrusting them out at the very center of the monster's mass, the energy unfurled in the form of a spherical burst that split a hole open and revealed Roy's soul buried within.

Shina didn't need to hear a word or see a nod. She widened her eyes and ran for one of her turrets, pulling it up by the back handle and transforming it into a gun that combined a hookshot with a sphere of aura at the front. She swung her hand up and fired the contraption straight towards Roy's soul. Litchi swung her body to the right so the now opening sphere could pass her by. The sphere snapped shut around Roy's soul and Shina clicked the trigger again to start reeling it back.

However, Arakune latched onto the sphere with strands of goop from his healing wound, tugging on it as hard and desperately as he possibly could. His body reared back and he screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" so loudly it frightened off all remaining bugs in the air. Shina cupped the weapon under her shoulder and wrapped her hands tightly around the rope, pulling back with all of her might.

"Whoa now, we got ourselves a feisty one here!" Shina's attempt to crack a joke was underlain with a straining grunt to keep a hold on the rope. But she was not alone, as Litchi flipped back in front of her and grabbed onto the rope as well. Even with their combined strength against him, Arakune was able to make more ground on reclaiming Roy's soul. Shina dug her feet into the ground even as her soles were being grinded down, proclaiming to Litchi with all she could "We…we didn't come this far to fail!"

Litchi was remaining calm and stated "We still have one more person who can help!" and her staff began to undergo one more transformation. It became a figure with two stick legs and beefy stick arms, complete with a cylindrical head that had blank white eyes and a thin, wavy mustache. The figure leapt in front of Litchi and grabbed onto the rope, adding his strength to the mix. Shina cracked a brief laugh and thought _"Shina you ditz, you totally forgot she could do that didn't ya?!"_

With a bit more energy, Shina tugged tightly at the rope and the three started to make leeway against Arakune's might. "NONONONONO!" The monster screeched as it's mass started to snap off of the sphere. "NONONONONONONONONO!" It's cries got faster and more desperate as the last strands broke off from the sphere, leading to him exclaiming one nice, drawn out "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" as the soul that kept his existence stable was sent flying back to Litchi.

Shina cut the rope and let the sphere fly into Litchi's embrace, and then she looked up and watched as Arakune stretched his head towards the sky and said the only truly coherent thing in his life "I just wanted…to know all…" before his body began to break down completely. His goop became as thin as water and it seeped into the cracks below, with the bones that it used lying in a pile that was topped by the clattering mask that once acted as it's face. When the mask fell silent atop the pile with not even a single speck of aura exuding from it, that was when Shina could lean her head back and breathe a heavy sigh of relief.

As she dropped her weapons to the ground and dispelled her Gunslinger Drive, Litchi fell to her knees and kept holding the sphere in her arms. She nestled her left cheek against it, drenching it in her tears. She let out a few sniffles and whispered "Roy…W-We did it…"

Shina tilted her head and put her hands in her pockets, a smile on her face all the while. Litchi lifted her head up and turned it a little to the right. Her cheeks were rosy red and soaking wet, but her smile was as pure as a reflection of sunlight off the morning river. "Thank you…Thank you so, so much…I-I don't know how I could ever, EVER repay you."

Shina wagged a pointer finger before her chest and said playfully "Just keep that sphere away from Tao until you can give it to Kokonoe. No telling what that crazy kid will do with it." Litchi giggled and murmured "I-I will…"

The girl then placed her hands at her hips and said "Alright. Then I'll leave ya be for now Litchi. It's time for me to get my personal affairs in order." As she turned around, Litchi yelled out "Wait!" and made her pause to look back, with the woman asking her "W-Will I ever see you again?"

Shina winked and waved a pointer finger out beside her face before replying perkily "Course ya will! You'll see, I'll make it back safe and sound, promise!" She then turned for the staircase and broke into a sprint, leaving Litchi behind. She hung her head a bit and tensely grit her teeth _"Y-Yeah right…I don't even have a plan of attack. Because if on the off-chance it's not Alex who broke into the Kagutsuchi HQ…"_

The memory of being stabbed through by Nu flashed before her eyes, causing her to grip her fists tightly enough that the fingernails pressed against her skin. She loosened up just enough at the thought of what happened with Litchi _"N-No…I have to win this battle. I have to preserve the hope that SHE fought so hard to have!"_

Nearing the top of the stairs, Shina's hair was blown into her face by a cold, haunting wind and she paused to push it all back. She then lifted her head up with a hand brushing the top of her hair, giving her perfect sight towards a person standing at the very peak of the stairs. They were a gothic-clothed waif with skin as pristine as the moonlight that reflected off her blood red eyes, a pair of silky, long blonde pigtails that waved in the pale breeze like leaves on a tree. The girl carried herself with the elegance and maturity of an aristocrat, and even with eyelids sagging her intrigued glare was alluring enough to hold Shina at bay.

Slowly lowering her arm, Shina muttered "You're…Rachel Alucard…" The girl laid her thick sleeves at the sides of her dress and greeted her company with a soft-spoken, posh accent "It seems my reputation proceeds me. How incredibly curious…"

Rachel slowly turned her head and faced Shina straight-on with a gaze that appeared to project contempt. "And you are Shina Aurora, child of the Aurians and the hopeless partner to that ornery child…" A shiver went through Shina's body, and with a finger pointed at herself she murmured "Y-You know what I am…?"

The vampire laid a hand on the side of her face and brushed a few stray strands of hair away, closing her eyes as she responded "Yes. Though my manner of disclosure is not as…intrusive as yours." It was both insulting and impressive that she could be so blunt while keeping up such an elegant tone.

Rachel lifted her head just an inch and peered through her eyelids, hanging a hand against her head as she looked at Shina, who stayed completely still with an uneasy grip on the front of her shirt. Butterflies were fluttering in her stomach, and she couldn't bring herself to say what she wanted to.

"You wonder why I am here…Why I have chosen this particular time to approach you."

Shina raised her head and gasped as Rachel spoke the ideas stuck in her head for her. The vampire then closed her eyes and whispered rather crass words to her guest "You are a fool." Never had an insult felt so scathing, and Shina winced all the features of her face upward before asking "W…What do you mean?"

"You believe, because you exist outside the flow of this world, you can freely change it's predetermined course?" Rachel peered her eyes open halfway and began a scathing lecture "Time is a river…It flows in a singular direction because that is what God decided it would do. There can be divergences, cracks and creeks formed by events done by man's own hand, but the original beginning and the original end cannot ever be changed."

The vampire turned her head just a little bit, and her gaze went past Shina's head and down towards Litchi. Shina looked back at her as Rachel remarked "That woman's fate was decided long ago. The moment that most foolish of men chose to partake in knowledge far beyond mortal understanding, his humanity could never be returned."

Shina clenched her fists and swung an arm out as she turned back to Rachel, exclaiming to her loudly "But if Kokonoe can make a new body…!" But the vampire intercepted such rage with a cold, harsh retort "And what would happen then? You believe his future would be…changed?"

Rachel closed her eyes and a brief sigh caressed her lips. "He is a man guided by an obsession. An obsession so great, it is ingrained to his very soul. Even if Kokonoe would offer her that woman the chance to recreate him anew, his very nature would remain unchanged. He would dive head-first into that horrid knowledge he seeks so fervently, and once more the cycle would unfold…Just as God intended."

Shina stood there, her body trembling from the wrists downward. Her hands clenched tightly into fists, a rage building up inside of her that she had never felt before. After all the hard work she put into helping such a kind, caring woman, this vampire was spitting in the face of all those efforts with just a few curt paragraphs.

"You…don't know that….!" She begrudgingly grunted through clenched teeth. Rachel closed her eyes and spoke again "That is, of course, of no importance anyways. This world is already coming to an end, just like it has and shall many times more."

Shina swung her head up, her face red with rage as she lashed out angrily at Rachel "No it's not! I know how this works! The Black Beast doesn't emerge until midnight! I still have-"

"Time?" Rachel calmly interrupted, completely placating Shina. The vampire then remarked "No, you do not. You have that feckless child to thank for hastening the demise of this world."

Shina lowered her fists and quietly inquired "Y-You're talking about Alex, aren't you? What's going on…what…what happened?" Rachel closed her eyes and said "With no regards for the rules, the little boy assumed he could play with his toys with naught a care towards the damage he could cause. All that mattered, in the end, is that he got what he wanted."

The ground started to shake, making Shina's feet stumble back a couple steps while Rachel did not even budge. Coldly, the vampire laid her hand beside her waist and commented "And not even Death herself could impart a lesson on morals to such a troubled child."

The roar of the Black Beast then ripped through Kagutsuchi while the ground at the very top started to crack apart. Shina took a moment to look back, but Rachel had already disappeared. She then looked down as parts of the stairway heaved up, disturbed by the Black Beast's birth. Litchi was still at the very bottom, kneeling with Roy's soul cuddled in her arms as the ground broke apart around her.

Shina bit her lower lip and her legs kicked up without warning. She wasn't thinking to do that, her instincts simply guided her every move. She panted and swung her arms back and forth besides her hips, hopping over the chunks of ground and flung before her path until she landed at the very bottom of the stairs. Litchi looked up and exclaimed Shina's name at the very moment the ground caved in beneath her.

She was sent tumbling off the side of this part of Kagutsuchi, letting out a hallow scream. Shina swung her body off the ground and charged after Litchi. She didn't notice the energy plummeting straight towards the city, and even if she did she couldn't bring herself to care. All that mattered now was tackling and wrapping her arms around Litchi's body, then pushing her as fast as he could through the sky to take her away from the city.

"W-What's happening?!" Litchi exclaimed in confusion as Shina grit her teeth and flew forward with all her strength. _"Come on…GO GO GO!"_ Her body was in a sweat, but she was already moving as fast as she could possibly go. And it simply…wasn't enough.

The energy crashed into Kagutsuchi and began to devour the whole thing in a terrifying explosion of light, and the edge of that blast would reach Shina and Litchi in a manner of seconds. Litchi's face went pale, and she could only let out a gasp and stammer "O-Oh my god…Linhua…Tao! E-Everyone…Everyone's dead!"

Shina could feel her pain wrenching into her heart as well, and she turned her head back to try and avoid looking her into her eyes. Instead, she saw the light of death coming ever closer. At that moment, all noise left Shina's ears, replaced only by the echo of Rachel's words _"That woman's fate was decided long ago."_

But Shina, ever the optimist, cracked a smile and thought _"No…you're wrong Rachel. I can…I WILL change her fate!"_ She then swung her head up and yelled "Litchi! I-I know this is going to sound crazy but…!" Litchi, with death just seconds from approaching, blankly stared into Shina's eyes as she continued "Time…time is going to loop over again! All that we've done today…Y-You're probably not going to remember any of it in the next iteration."

The girl turned her head for a moment and the weight of all those memories once more being forgotten by another dug itself into her mind. But she had to finish what she had to say, and fast. Looking back up, she exclaimed "But please, I don't care what forces you have to defy! I want you to remember that there's always hope! Even if you lose Roy forever, you'll still be alive! You'll still remember the smiles and memories you shared together! If you remember those memories, you'll always have a smile…And if you smile, it's because those memories are the most precious things in the world to you!"

The light was starting to dig into Shina's feet, bringing her an immeasurable amount of pain. With one final smile for this brave and kindly woman, Shina yelled out "And most importantly of all…Don't ever, EVER listen to a man named Hazama! G-Got I-" They were gone. The light of judgment rid the world of their presences just like it did for Kagutsuchi. And once more, time would reset…

 _Next Time: The Defender of Justice_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Wanted I: Alex vs. 101 Ninjas**

In the forests outside of Kagutsuchi, Alex once again can be seen huddled amongst the branches high above the trees. He's in the midst of a deep sleep, but this time his body has found itself in a rather awkward position compared to the last time. He's hung upside-down, the bottom of his legs caught between two particularly strong branches that the tops of his shoes laid atop of. Not only did this make him resemble a bat, but it left his face rather red from all the blood flushing down his veins.

And yet he continued to snore like he was tucked snugly under three layers of sheets while laying on a mattress softer than a cloud. It was quite impressive, if one must be honest. Luckily, nature would soon provide the perfect means of awakening him in the form of a couple plucky robins, who happened upon the hanging boy while foraging for food and nesting materials. Seeing that the boy's shirt has fallen to his armpits, the birds planted their talons on top of his ear lobes and thrust their beaks at the couple of loose strings they could find.

Every time they tugged at the string, their talons dug a bit into the boy's skin to give themselves more leverage. The first couple of times Alex just grumbled, then moved on to wiggling his lips with some frustrated sounds, finally ending with him thrusting his eyes open with a glare that would scare stampeding bulls.

He glanced up to the left and to the right, then he swung his arms up and yelled "Shoo! Shoo you stupid birds!" And the robins fluttered their wings and went on their merry way. Alex then froze for a moment upon noticing the particular predicament he found himself in, his vision wobbling as a whirlwind of dizziness spun through his brain.

"Urkk…bluuurkk…" Alex slowly pulled his hand up and flicked a blade of condensed air to break the two branches trapping his legs in place. He then spun around, giving himself a brief headache as his body flushed the blood back down through his veins and regulated the flow to normal levels. Rubbing his forehead, the boy found himself getting bonked on the back of his head by one of the falling branches.

Glancing back and grumbling internally, Alex then floated to the ground while reaching into his right pocket. Pulling out the Gaia Temporis and handling it a few inches before his face he gave an unamused glance and remarked "Got a real sense of humor there, don't you?" He then slowly placed it back in his pocket while murmuring "Whatever, at least you're still doing your job."

Once he landed softly he placed his arms against his chest and felt a searing pain across the front of his neck. It was like someone was taking an invisible pocket knife to his skin. The boy didn't even raise a hand to rub the spot and immediately thought _"Still some lingering pain from that damned doll…I'll make sure to pay her back double for this."_

Cracking a small grin along with a "Heh…" he then raised his head a bit and thought back to the battle. Repeating the image of Nu's head being splattered between two rocks a few times over, he wondered out loud "Still, she should've died from that…Was there something I was forgetting?" Delving into his mind's encyclopedia for this world, the boy imagined flipping through the pages of a book three times as big as his head while slowly tapping his right foot on the ground and glancing around the canopy of the forest.

After a good two minutes on this, Alex paused on a certain thought and with a widening of his eyes brought his cold leather glove slapping down on the front of his face and pulled down on his skin with his fingertips, groaning in disbelief "Son of a bitch, I forgot all about the goddamn Life Link she has with Ragna."

Alex recalled how a Life Link is a bond between two individuals that ensures that so long as one lives, the other will come back to life eventually even if they are killed. As such, Ragna's presence in that battle had proved to be a detriment in more ways than one. _"So the only way I'd be able to kill Nu is either to kill Ragna around the same time, or throw her back into the Cauldron while her body's gravely wounded so she'd have difficulty healing."_

As he pulled his hand away from his face with his brows sagging and a generally pissed off look on his face, he found himself glancing at his glove for a few seconds. Flipping it around and then back to the palm a couple times, Alex murmured "Of course, I could also use the Blazing Overlord Fist…No Life Link will save her from that." It didn't take long for him to shake his head and brush his hand out beside his hip, remarking with a drawn out sigh "Then I'd just take the whole Kagutsuchi Branch down with me. Not worth it."

He swung his head back and with a muddy growl he slipped his hands into his pockets and thought _"Sometimes, I really got to curse my good conscience…"_ He then flung his head back upright and sighed.

"Whatever…I'm sure I can figure something out to deal with that bitch." He was rather lax in his venomous remark, likely a result of the peaceful atmosphere in the forest putting some temporary peace in his mind. Turning around, the boy looked out towards Kagutsuchi and mentioned "I know one thing…I'm sure as hell not going to bother capturing Ragna again."

He laid a hand on the back of his head and with a lean forward hesitantly mentioned "Hell, it's probably for the best if I don't bother trying to find Shina until after I've dealt with Nu. Then I won't be working with a time limit." Perking his head up an inch and with eyelids sagging a little, the boy then thought _"But if Shina were to die before I dealt with Nu, then…"_

Curling his lips and biting his teeth down into a scowl, the boy growled out "I don't know if she's even ALIVE!" He swung his head to face his right pocket and said "You know, you could AT LEAST tell me that much!" before punching the side of his pants where the stone bulged out at.

Alex then swung his head up and waved both hands out in front of his hips, laying them flat against the air while trying to put on a more relaxed expression. "No…calm yourself Alex. You just have to some faith here…Yeah, Shina's alive, she has to be." His haphazard manner of reassuring himself brought only stress to his heart, and he started speaking a little faster as he went on with a blush growing thicker in his cheeks.

"Y-You're just worried about her cause she's a friend. That's it, there's no deeper meaning behind it…Just general, friendly concern…Cause that's what friends do for each other. As friends. Yeah…" He stopped himself with a firm punch to his right cheek, making sure to twist his knuckles in for added impact. Letting his expression relax into a more neutral form, the boy then murmured "Wish these thoughts would just go away, they're just a pain in the ass…"

He then looked towards Kagutsuchi and mentioned "Well, guess the first thing I should do is regain enough elemental energy so I can use my Phoenix Form again. All the damn seithr in this forest is poisoning the energy here…" He then clenched his fists beside his hips and with a grin kicked off the ground to begin flying, thinking as he set off _"And once I do, that bitch is toast."_

It didn't take very long to get back to the city and land in that familiar alleyway in Orient Town. Once there, the first thing Alex thought once he left that was _"Am I going to run into those inconsiderate kids again?"_ Clearly, his priorities were well in order.

Luckily, he made it through the crowd without being bumped, pushed or even poked. He stood out on the edge of this layer and turned to the right, looking up at the top of the city. He rubbed the back of his head and wondered "Now where the hell would be a good place to recharge…?"

Once more drawing upon the encyclopedia in his mind, Alex recalled that there was a garden somewhere in Kagutsuchi. The only problem is he could not remember how to get there from here. The boy crumpled his face up a little bit and said "Haaaaa…Screw it, I'll just go buy a map of the city." Thus began the search for a souvenir shop, which left Alex grumbling all the way there.

"Honestly, map shopping…I've truly hit the peak of my existence…" The boy sighed as he laid a hand on the door to the shop he needed. The place was pretty small and had a cozy vibe to it. There were decorative tassels hung from the ceiling and a few racks filled with notebooks, snacks, and basically everything else one would need to show that they had the genuine Orient Town experience.

Running the shop behind a shoulder high counter was a towering beast man with long golden hair like a mane and tan brown skin. Even greeting Alex politely, he had a deep and gravely voice "Welcome to Orient Ordinances, how may I help you?"

Alex pulled his head back and kept his eyes stiff in a widened glance. Raising a hand up and brushing it aside, he slowly asked "Uhhh…do you have any maps?" The man crossed his bushy haired arms and said "A map eh? So, you're not from around here."

The boy shrugged his shoulders and hung his head a little. The man grinned his fangs and closed his eyes, portraying an overall comfy demeanor as he commented "Relax kid. Any customer who comes in is like family. I'll treat you right."

Alex jerked his head up and waved it back and forth, followed by him waving a hand up and bluntly remarking "You're not intimidating to me, pussy cat." The lion beastman opened his eyes, glancing down in a manner that could insinuate he was insulted. Then he cracked into jolly laughter and remarked "What a bark you have there young one! You are DEFINITELY not from around here!"

Alex slanted his brows and tapped his fingers on his folded arms, remarking in a crass tone "I got things to do, can you just give me a map?" The man replied while still chuckling "Sure, sure. Give me just one moment."

The man kneeled behind the counter, while Alex sighed and looked to the left, noticing the wall was littered with wanted posters and such. Curious about the type of scum that wandered the city, the boy took a couple steps over and scanned the posters from top to bottom. "Arakune…Ragna the Bloodedge…Alex Whiter…Terminus the Terrible…" In a bit of a curiosity induced daze, it took Alex a moment to register what he just said.

" _Wait…wait a second…"_ He backed up to the middle of the wall and saw a rather surreal and unexpected sight. Staring him right in the face was an unflatteringly painted picture of himself, which had an exaggerated nose, a crooked scowl, and the right eye was glowing bright red. He slowly and softly read the details off "'Wanted: Alex Whiter. A reward of 100 billion shall be given to the person who can bring in or kill this dangerous criminal. Be warned, he has an irritable attitude, tends to blow things up, and might be clinically insane…'?! What the actual FUCK is this shit?!"

"Is something the matter?" The lion man rose up from behind the counter, and Alex shifted himself around and had his angered glare on for only a moment. He quickly tried the ol' 'cough into the mouth' trick to himself a moment to gather his thoughts. He looked the man in the eyes and remarked "I-It's just hard to believe these type of criminals are allowed to run free in the world."

The man waved a map out beside his head and commented "Yeah, no kidding. I heard three of those bastards on the wall are in Kagutsuchi right this very second. Tch…why do they have to cause trouble on today of all days." He gave a disapproving shake of the head while Alex forced a smirk and glanced aside, stuttering in agreement "Y-Yeah…What a bunch of assholes, right?"

"Well, so long as they don't disturb this part of the city we'll be ok. Now, you wanted this type of map, right?" The lion held out a decent-sized foldable map that showed every floor in Kagutsuchi along with some recommendations for places to visit. Alex nodded his head and reached into his left pocket and pulled out a couple bills, laying them atop the counter.

"Keep the change. By the way, can I take one of those posters?"

The man raised his brows curiously and his tone of voice slowed as he said "Sure?" Alex took his poster down and then turned around to take the map from off the counter. He stuffed the map in his right pocket and then held the poster before his chest as he made his way for the exit. Before he was out the man asked with a hint of suspicion in his tone "Say, why did you come to this city anyways?"

Alex peeked over his shoulder with a dull gaze and answered just as monotonously "Oh, I just have things to do. Last thing I'd want is to accidentally run into this dangerous cretin, right?" The man passed him a fanged smirk and told him "Alright. Be careful out there, and have a wonderful New Year."

The boy waved out to the man as he left the shop, slowly shutting the door behind him. The very second it was closed, Alex's smile was gone, replaced with a scornful frown as he glared straight down at the poster. He was half-tempted to burn it to ash with heat beams from the eyes, but the contents of the poster was as curious as it was frustrating.

So for now, he took his anger out by crunching the paper tight between his fingers and unleashing a rabid series of growls. When the paper was pressed against his palm as a crumpled up ball he murmured angrily "Well, I think I know just WHO is responsible for this abomination." The image of a green-haired, fancy suited, fedora wearing man with snake-like eyes and a overzealous cackle then slithered it's way into the boy's mind.

"Yuuki…Terumi…!" As Alex grunted that name through his teeth he pressed his thumb down on the poster and burned it to ash, and by opening his palm those ashes spread across the ground. Laying his hands inside his pockets, the boy strolled forward a little and kept a bitter scowl on his face as he looked around the area. There were no signs of the person he thought about, but the thing about snakes like him is that they are very good at slipping into even the tightest of cracks to observe their prey.

After a few seconds of looking around, Alex eased his expression to avoid drawing attention, ending up with his lips lying flat across his face and his eyelids hung only slightly. He stared ahead and thought angrily _"Haven't even run into the bastard and already he's screwing with me. Goddamn it, I didn't even do anything!"_

In rapid succession, he remembered that man whose hand he broke, ruining the docks, and kicking down the Kagutsuchi HQ's front door. With a scoff he winced his eyelids shut and stammered "N-None of that was even in this timeline!' He opened his eyes and thusly declared "Whatever, I don't have to take ANY of this bullshit! I'm just going to burn down any of those wanted posters I can find on the way to the garden!"

Freezing in place and thinking for a moment about how that line of thinking doesn't really help his case, Alex rolled his eyes and let out a "Hmph!" before reaching into his pocket to pull out the map. He looks it over, finding that the garden was on one of the higher tiers, not very far from the Kagutsuchi HQ. Cracking a genuine smile, Alex thought _"Sweet, I won't have to walk far after I'm done."_

He tucked the map away and went off through Kagutsuchi to find that garden. He makes a good effort to find any of his wanted posters throughout the city and burning them by snapping his fingers behind his back. There was a bit of surprise from the people, and the fire didn't spread any further past the poster. Every time he burned one of those posters he imagined that it was Terumi's smug face instead, and it brought an inkling of joy to his otherwise angry, cynical heart. Eventually he found his way to Kagutsuchi's garden, which lied just one floor below the HQ.

This garden was decorated with a few emerald crafted statues depicting a battle between three heavenly valkyries fighting against an impish, winged devil. The valkyries on the left and right wore a helmet, while the middle one that was riding a horse had instead had it's head cleaved straight off by the imps wickedly sharp pair of scythes. That head was on the ground in front of a small brick bridge near the entrance, currently covered in a few thickets of daffodils.

Alex thought of the sculptures as decently made but didn't really take much interest in what they stood for otherwise, minus their resemblance to Shina's Valkyrie Drive anwyays. He took a casual stroll through the garden by crossing the bridge, sniffing in the fresh, moist air emanating off of the intricately multi-layered fountain in the center of the garden along the way. He slowly drew his head back with each breath, making sure he soaked in the energy to the fullest extent.

"Aaaaah…Now THIS makes all the shit I deal with…WOOOORTH IT." Alex cracked into a bit of high-pitched glee, surprising even himself as he stopped in the center of the bridge and blinked a couple times. But his happiness wiped that surprise clean from the mind in a second and he went back to smiling. Then he laid his hands behind his head and kept strolling through the garden.

He found it very interesting that this place chose to forgo nature for a more artistic type of feel. The fountain had the appearance of a castle, and there were even holes big enough to act as entrances if it weren't for the all the water cascading in front of them. There were plenty of other structures scattered about with an aesthetic similar to ancient Rome, including broken coliseum walls and urns filled with flowers.

Even without nature being at the forefront, Alex was still feeling plenty of pure elemental energy flowing into his body from the garden. Glancing forward, the boy saw a stone bench at the end of the bridge that lied just under one of the statues, offering protection from the sun. The boy raised his brows a bit in contemplation and remarked "Eh, what the hey, a short nap won't hurt." But as he made his way to the bench…

"There he is! It's the wanted criminal, Alex Whiter!"

Some asshole yelling that out for all to hear made Alex press his foot down so firmly on the ground it cracked. He dug his foot in and twisted it back and forth as he turned himself around and looked towards the tree to the right of the bridge. The leaves had been ruffled and three people let out a "Cho!" as they were falling to the ground in front of him.

Alex folded his arms together and fiercely glared at the people who were either too brave or too foolish to be coming after him. The three people landed swiftly onto the bridge already knelt down, a hand crossed before their chests. There were wearing generic looking ninja garb, complete with gauntlets that had medical tape wrapped wrists and boots with that same tape around the ankles. Each person wore a garb of a different color between red, yellow and green, with their faces obscured by a cloth mask and a metal bandana that had a strange symbol consisting of a nail pushed through a crooked 'C' and some sort of strange tuba-like thing.

" _Ikaruga ninjas…really?"_ Alex's glare softened, replaced more with an irritable sensation of pity towards those three poor souls as they stood up and swung their right fists out in unison, as though they believed they actually had even the SLIGHTEST chance of victory. So like the pests they are, Alex brushed his right fingers along his left elbow to try and shoo them off while remarking crassly "Don't you have some anime convention to get to?"

The ninja in the center with the red garb thrust his pointer finger out and exclaimed in an overly dramatic tone "Laugh it up while you still can, scum! We ninjas of Ikaruga will not rest while evil such as you runs rampant through our streets!" Alex then laid his hands in his pocket and kicked a foot up, not even bothering to give those idiots a moment of attention from his gaze as he looked up and let out a whistle, going on to casually mention "Must have me mistaken for someone else. They always say there's a double of you out there in the world."

"And you expect us to believe that pack of lies?!"

Alex lowered his head, for just a second looking at the three ninjas' exactly similar choices of wardrobes and commenting dryly with a brush of the hand out of his pocket "Really?" The ninjas paused and turned to look at each other, with the yellow and green ones leaning forward to glance at each other at the end. The red one then declared with a shaky voice "T-That doesn't count! Each of us are unique!"

"Ah, did your mother tell you that?" Alex said with a coy grin. The other two ninjas gasped and looked at their leader, who was tightly clenching his fist while his comrades went "Oooooooo" like he'd been hit with the hardest schoolyard diss ever. The red ninja then exclaimed "Resorting to such a low blow! Your wanted poster did not accurately portray your boundless cruelty, villain!"

"Boundless? Wow, that's a pretty big word coming from you." Alex lowered his head and closed his eyelids a bit, his face painted with a wide sneer. The red ninja nestled his fist against his chest and leaned forward, let out a gagging cough as though he had just taken a lethal blow. The man staggered upright and wobbled a pointer finger towards Alex, who stood sideways and laughed internally.

"Y-You think you're so tough now! W-We of Ikaruga have been trained in the art of ninjutsu! Each one of us has the strength of a hundred men!"

Alex tilted his head to the left and boasted "You come at me with only three-hundred strong? Fool!" He swung his arms out and let a small aura of fire radiate around his body, making sure to project a divine power to those eager but meager ninjas. "Even if you sent a thousand, no, ten-thousand men to face me, you would just be swept away by the tides of my overwhelming power!"

"O-Oh yeah…?" The red ninja shook, and his confidence didn't seem as weak as before. Alex perked his brows up and shifted his body a little to the left, whispering as the man seemed to be taking a couple fingers to the sides of his mouth "Wait, you're kidding me right?"

The ninja let out a whistle, and suddenly ninety-seven cries of "Cho!" echoed throughout the garden. Then the sky was clouded by a massive, unified group of ninjas that leaped out from the pond, the fountain, off the walls, whatever the hell other crevices or hiding spots they could find. Alex looked up and was a little bit surprised that the ninjas were so organized.

They all dropped and landed on the area around Alex, who was now stuck in the middle of them all. Sadly, this meant that all those beautiful sights were now being drowned in ninjas. At this point, the situation had gotten personal. Alex raised his hands in front of his chest and remarked with a curt scowl "You know…" He cracked one knuckle tightly and made the area shake before continuing on to say "All I wanted was a nice, PEACEFUL…" he cracked his other knuckles even tighter and knocked a couple ninjas off their posts with the ensuing tremor before he ended his sentenced with a barely tranquil remark of "Nap…"

He then swung his hands out and wiggled his fingers towards his palm, glaring around at all one-hundred ninjas before grinning and remarking tauntingly "So guess who're the unlucky few who get to be my stress relief now?" The red ninja leading the group swung his pointer finger out and declared "In the name of Ikaruga…ATTACK!"

Alex lunged forward in a second and punched that ninja square in the gut. He twisted his fist clockwise and dug into the skin to enhance the impact and send him barreling back into about five other ninjas, sending them flying far off while he ended up head-first through a wall and knocked unconscious. _"94...!"_ Alex started keeping a tally of those he knocked out as he observed his immediate surroundings. A few of the ninjas were leaping down above him while the two to the left and right drew their kunai and prepared to dive them towards his arms.

From the boy's perspective, the ninjas were moving at a snail's pace, and it gave him triple the amount of time a normal human would to plan out his course of attack. _"I should try and conserve as much energy as I can…"_ He then swung his fists up and punched the ninjas by their wrists, dislodging the kunais so he could snatch them up and grip them sideways. Focusing on the spread cloth underneath the ninja's armpits, Alex stabbed the kunais into there and released a small burst of magnetism to send them flying into the water.

" _92...!"_

He then looked up and saw that the three ninjas were coming down with short blades, and with his senses he was able to glance back and notice three other ninjas charging at him with kunais held close to their chest. Alex flipped back, slipping between the narrow gap of both parties while nudging his right fingers out to slightly adjust the angle the blades were pointed towards. The moment he landed behind the charging kunai wielders, the blade wielders landed and ended up stabbing their swords between the kunai wielders toes, pinning them in place.

Their cries of surprise came out rather slowly but wouldn't be around for long as Alex sped right behind the three kunai wielders, grabbed two of them by the back of their heads, then simultaneously pushed them down while slamming his forehead into the center person's skull. All six ninjas' heads collided with each other and they fell to the ground unconscious.

" _86...!"_

He sharply turned around and saw a couple ninjas cupping a hand around their mouth with fire slowly pushing forth from it in a cone. There was also a ninja throwing what appeared to be a pair of explosive tags while in mid-jump. With a mischievous grin and slanting of his brows, Alex pulled his arms to the left of his body and leapt at the tags, swiping them with a mid-air turn around and throwing one after another at the centers of the emerging flames.

One of the ninjas slowly spoke out "Oooooooooh shiiii-" before the tags set off a pair of grand explosions, throwing a few dozen ninjas flying far away and forcing the remainder to scatter to avoid being dragged in. Alex landed and his smile got wider. _"50 already…Time to kick this up a notch!"_

He focused on about six ninjas that had by pure chance lined themselves in a neat little row between Alex and the stone sword stuck in the pond. With a swift leap Alex plunged his right foot in the first ninjas stomach and sent him flying into the others, each impact creating a bigger shockwave until all six crashed into the broad side of the sword and cracked it apart. As those ninjas tumbled down the fallen sword, Alex landed with his left leg stretched out and made another count _"44..."_

He swerved his head to the left and saw a curved group of ten ninjas reaching into their pockets to pull shuriken to fling at him. Alex thrust off the ground and slipped past the side of the shuriken to get to the right side of the ninjas. With a spin of his body he slammed the left side of his right leg hard into the closest ninja's arm to send him flying in a curve that took out his partners by throwing them all against the side of the fountain.

" _34...!"_

With his kick still carrying his momentum around, Alex then flew towards the ground where the earlier shuriken now bounced off of it. He stood beside them all and whipped his left palm out, releasing a small vine whip that slipped through all the shuriken's holes. He then jerked his head to the left and saw ten ninjas leaping straight at him. Swinging the vine out while retracting it back into his palm, Alex managed to fling the shuriken hard into the ninjas' gut. It pressed against an armor plate they wore underneath with enough force to launch them back through one of the broken coliseum walls.

" _24...!"_

Before those ninjas went away, a couple of them flung a blade at him. Alex swung his hands beside his shoulders and caught them out, then stabbed them into the ground and used them as conductor rods. A pair of large lightning bolts plummeted from the sky and shocked through two separate towers of seven jumping ninjas, dropping them straight on top of the planted blades as Alex pulled himself away and watched the groups fumble into piles on the ground.

" _10...!"_

The remaining ninjas gathered around the circumference of the statue area and planted a magically enhanced blade into the edge. A multi-point seal began to form across the area nice and slow, and Alex pulled his head back and let out a sigh before choosing to end this fight with just his speed. He rocketed from ninja to ninja, knocking them out with differing blows ranging from elbows to the forehead, knees to the guts, and punches under the chin.

When Alex was done he leaped to the top of the statue where the seal was going to combine at and stamped his foot down, halting the flow of energy. He then clapped his hands together and closed his eyes as he heard every last ninja going flying and crashing into various parts of the garden.

"Aaaaaand zero…" He thrust his eyes open with a nice, proud smile on his face before he hopped to the ground and laid his hands in his pockets. Lowering his head a little, he remarked humorously "Almost wish one of these stones would land in the Dynasty Warriors world…"

He began to stroll across the stone bridge, looking up towards the Kagutsuchi HQ and thinking _"Alright, now that that detour's out of the way…"_

"Halt, evildoer!"

Alex grimaced as a gruff, over-exuberant voice banged against his eardrums. With a small frown and his forehead crumpled with wrinkles, the boy thought _"…No, not doing this…."_ and continued to walk forward.

"I said…Halt!"

Alex kept walking for a few seconds until the shadow of a figure began to descending in front of him. He then looked up and saw a particular scruffy man coming down on a green parachute that had the same symbol as the ninja's headbands. The man had spike swift back, slight long brown hair and amber eyes, with an X-shaped scar across his face. He wears a green ninja outfit with the entire chest and midsection removed, revealing his sculpted pecs and chiseled six pack, and his lack of modesty extended to the thigh exposed hakama pants he wore. On his hands were black fingerless gloves with odd silver gauntlets around the wrists, and on his back was a giant 55 inch nail held in place with the help of his incredibly flowing red scarf.

The man pulled his arms forward to get rid of the parachute, then he flipped out of the sky and landed on the ground a few feet in front of Alex. With an overly rambunctious expression, the man swung his right fist forward and proclaimed with an energy that would make a sugar-high kid blush "You shall not escape judgment for the crimes you have committed! I, Bang Shishigami, shall now be your opponent!"

Alex lowered his head and felt a vein above his brows twitching as he closed his eyes. _"Did I miss the memo on 'Piss Alex Off' day or something?"_ He lifted his head up and brushed a hand out of his pocket, saying to the scruffy man nonchalantly "Look, I'm not a criminal. You have the wrong idea."

Bang rushed forward while whipping a paper from his baggy pants and ramming it into Alex's face, complete with his knuckles digging into his cheeks. The ninja proclaimed "Then how do you explain this?! You think you can wiggle your way out of justice with your LIES, fiend?!" The boy grit his teeth while trying to squirm his face away from the man's sweating knuckles, explaining all the while "Would you believe me if I told you some green-haired bastard is framing me? …No, of course not."

As Alex shook his head and sighed, Bang pulled back and spread his kneeling legs, swinging his right hand before his face as his scarf swayed in a breeze that wasn't there. The boy folded his arms and gave the man an almost pitying glance before being brutally honest "I already took out a hundred of your ninjas. Do yourself a favor and take their pathetic asses back home and forget you ever saw me."

Bang's eyes flared up with a determination fiercer than a raging fire, and he declared thusly to Alex "You dare mock the heart of Ikaruga?! Does your villainy know no bounds?!" The boy closed his eyes all the way and his face sagged from exhaustion. Brushing a hand out and releasing a sigh, he explained dryly "Look, if I was a villain, I'd have killed all of your men. Maybe instead of jumping around hopped up on adrenaline, you should take a moment to just stop and THINK."

The ninja closed his eyes and remarked "Even so…my instincts are telling me that you are a very dangerous individual. As the defender of all things just and good in the hearts of men, women and children across the world, I cannot just stand by and let you roam free!"

Alex opened his eyes and raised a hand up, flipping it around and curling the pinky and thumb inward. "I'm giving you to the count of three to leave this be, Bang Shishigami." Bang boasted proudly in response as Alex kept curling fingers inward "Ha! You cannot scare me with your THREATS, villain!"

Leaving just his middle finger pointed upward, Alex shrugged for a moment and then warped in front of Bang in a millisecond, using that same finger to flick him in the forehead with all his strength. The man's body curved back and then was sent tumbling along the ground until he slammed back first into a thick tree, where he let out a couple weakened grunts before he dropped face-first onto the wet stone ground.

Alex swung his hand out with fingers spread, letting out a couple pitying "Tsks" before shaking his head and remarking scathingly "I gave you a fair warning…Idiot." He then placed his hands in his pockets and started to make his way for the exit.

"Gh…ghhhh…"

The boy paused just a few steps away from the exit and glanced to the left. He sensed something eerie coming from Bang's body as the man slowly pushed himself off the ground, an energy that he had encountered many times before. The man brushed some blood from his mouth and didn't seem to realize that his muscles bulged for a moment.

"I-I cannot let you leave…While I still draw breath, I-I will stand in your way…! I-I cannot let you bring harm to those under my protection…" Even weakened, Bang's voice was full of fire and heart, and he got to his feet while his muscles bulged a little more and a purple aura erupted around his body like a geyser. His eyes burned a vicious red, and waves of power surged through the ground and made even Alex widen his eyes in notice.

"… _This power…Might be troublesome…"_

The boy turned to glare at Bang, who took up that same hunched over pose and swung his right fist out, proclaiming with all his power "I stand as the indomitable wall of justice! The protector of all, Bang Shishigami! Now villain…PREPARE YOURSELF!"

 _Next Time: Nail in the Coffin_


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Wanted II: BANG! BANG! BANG!**

Alex stared into the eyes of Bang Shishigami, noticing that they burned deep with not just determination but also with a slight hint of wickedness. That was more a result of the aura that had infected him than a change in the man's overall demeanor. Before the ninja could charge at him, Alex held his hand up and remarked "Hey, hold your horses there idiot. You can't tell me you haven't noticed that aura around you."

Bang stood up straight and placed his fists on his hips, letting out a jolly laugh before he proclaimed "This is merely the manifestation of my burning heart of JUSTICE! Tell me villain, does that cold heart of yours not tremble at the sight of it?!" He swung his right fist out and had the look of a maniac on his face, and Alex then slanted his brows and commented "Oh, yes, I can't keep my footing I'm quaking so much…"

" _Then again, his strength feels somewhere between Ragna before and after activating the Azure, so maybe I should take this a little seriously now…"_ Alex closed his eyes and with a sigh held his hands in front of his hip and cracked his knuckles, remarking in a reluctant tone "Whatever, lets just get this over with, I have shit to do."

"Hahaha! The only thing you shall be doing, vile cur, is eating prison food for the rest of your days!" Bang boasted jollily before hunching over and charging ahead at Alex. He moved as nimbly as a breeze, his feet not making a sound despite how many times he tapped the ground in the second it took him to reach Alex and then swing his right fist diagonally towards the boy's chin.

Alex widened his eyes then swiftly flung his right arm up to clock the underside of Bang's gauntlet to force the fist to brush past the left side of his face. The punch shot off a pocket of air that blew against the back of Alex's hair, surprising him with the power packed into that blow. Alex quickly wrapped his arms around Bang's gauntlet and swung him over his head to smash him against the ground back first.

The very moment Alex's arms loosened however, the halves of Bang's gauntlet spun around and became a makeshift hammer that thrust forward to jab the boy hard in the face. Alex's face reddened as blood dripped from his nose, and as he stumbled back while grumbling "Mother fucker…!" Bang rolled forward and got to his feet. Turning around, the ninja swung his right pointer out and proclaimed "That was just the first of many blows from my Hammers of Justice, fiend!"

Alex pulled his hand down and with an irritated glare asked "Do you even HAVE a mute button?!" Bang bent down and as he swung his left fist forward with a face brimming fiercely with heart he exclaimed "Justice cares not for the word 'silence', nor does it care for evil-doers…AND BELL PEPPERS!"

The boy's expression drooped into a state of distress, as though he had already found himself completely defeated. _"It finally happened…I found someone too STUPID to throw insults towards."_ He readjusted himself as Bang charged forward with his left leg wreathed in bright flames, throwing out a kick that turned his body around in a full circle to increase it's power. Alex dug his feet into the ground and pulled up an ankle-high wall of steel to block the kick, but the very moment it connected Bang had completely vanished from sight save for a few leaves where he was.

Alex's expression was once again left in shock as he started to swing his head back only for his left cheek to be pounded by the burning fire and sweat from Bang's left fist. The boy found his feet leaving the ground and his body suspended in mid-air while the skin of his cheeks rippled in an attempt to stabilize. With incredible agility, Bang did a short hop and flipped himself around, bringing his burning left fist down onto Alex's chest and knock him to the ground.

The tile floor broke and scattered upon his impact, with Alex's body lurching up as he coughed a bit of saliva. Bang followed his assault with a diagonally kick to the bottom of Alex's stomach, which knocked the boy back to the ground and sent him grinding up more of the tiles until his head smacked into the fence surrounding one of the trees.

"Toh!" Bang yelled before flinging a red ribbon wrapped nail straight at Alex, who slowly reared his head up and with eyes widened in a fervent glare he clapped his hands against the nail, only for it to blow up in his face. Bang stood upright and crossed his arms against his chest, proclaiming heartily "Hahaha! Had enough?!"

Alex leapt out of the smoke with fists held together behind his head and a scowl on his face. Disliking the fact that he had to put in effort against Bang Shishigami of all people, the boy put all his strength into a downward slam of his fists. The ninja was quite taken aback by his rage and quickly pulled his gauntlets up to block the punch. A shockwave of power ripped through the air and sliced into the legs of the imp statue, while Bang's legs bent down and his gauntlets were dented a little.

Bang pulled his arms back and Alex stayed levitated as he swung his left leg towards the man's face. Bang ducked his head under the calve and then swung his right fist straight between the boy's legs with all his might. Alex grimaced with his eyes widening to the point of them almost breaking free of the sockets. He dropped to the ground and keeled over, with the boy gritting his teeth and releasing moans of agony.

Bang held his fists against his hips and stood triumphant over his pained opponent, and with a jolly laugh he reprimanded his error proudly "First rule of battle…Do not leave your weak points exposed! Hahaha!" As Alex continued to be hunched over, Bang's laughter slowed down until it sounded a little awkward, then eventually left as nothing more than a pitying "Haaa…"

He looked down at Alex and with a concerned smirk asked "Are you ok?" The boy turned his head away from the man and cracked a wide, mischievous grin that would make even the Grinch blush. He then spun around while rising up, grabbing Bang by the head and forcing him down so he could knee him in the face while exclaiming "Balls of steel, bitch!"

He then let go and threw a couple punches into Bang's chest to push him back, all the while the ninja grunted in utter shock "I can't believe you pretended to be wounded!" Alex responded with a fierce sounding "All's fair in battle!" as he swung his left leg up and hit the side of Bang's face, knocking him off the ground and spinning him around sideways a few times until Alex spun around and slammed his right foot into his gut to send him crashing through the nearby tree.

As the tree fell and splashed into the water, Alex stood sideways and winced, thinking after a slight grunt of pain _"T-Though that did sting a bit…"_ He grit his teeth and took in a deep breath through his nostrils while Bang flipped past the tree and landed with fist already swung out. With a roar of anger he said "Even a ninja such as myself wouldn't resort to such underhanded tactics! You, good sir, are the epitome of villainy!"

Alex widened his eyes and let out a surprised scoff before he curtly told the man "Epitome's such a big word. You and the dumbass squad must've huddled around a dictionary for story-time, eh?" Bang was taken aback and let out a terse growl, remarking in a furiously offended tone "I will not let you sully the name of Ikaruga any longer! Now you shall know the true power of Bang Shishigami!"

"Hmph…" Alex lowered his brows with a distinct lack of care as he gently waved his left hand towards himself and said "Bring-" but before he could finish that with an "-it on" Bang had already ran right in front of him and yelled "Shishigami Ninpo Hidden Arts!" while jabbing his elbow into Alex's chest.

He then swung his other fist into the boy's chest and make him curl over, with Bang refusing to let up as he dragged Alex's feet along the ground with each blow he made. His next attack was a jab to the bottom of his neck, followed by a high-rising kick to the bottom of his chin to knock him up, and then bringing that same foot down with the force of an axe to send him straight down. But with his agility at it's apex, the ninja plucked Alex out of the air by the collar of his shirt and rammed forward, leaving dust in his wake until he pounded the boy straight into the iron fence with a vicious thrust of the arm.

"BANG VOLCANIC FURY!" He screamed with all his might as his strength broke through the fence and sent Alex flying into the tree. The boy recovered quickly and planted his hands against the bark, digging his nails into it to pull some out and tuck into his grasp. He then leaped from the tree and kept his arms folded back as he wildly swung his feet at Bang's chest. The ninja somersaulted back and flicked another red ribbon wrapped nail at the boy, who responded in kind by tossing some bark out with the speed of a bullet to intercept and set off the nail's devious and explosive trap.

Alex then launched forth through the smoke with a high-rising spinning kick locked onto Bang's forehead. The ninja bent under the attack and then swung his flaming right fist up into the bottom of the boy's calves. The impact made the boy's muscles spasm and sent a stinging pain rippling up his hip, but he didn't let it hold him back as he swung his leg straight down and kicked the back of Bang's head with the heel of his shoe to send him tumbling behind.

The boy then spun around and landed on his left foot, wiggling the other one a bit while letting out a relived puff of air. In that time Bang stood up and turned around, looking no less spry than he did before. _"Have to admire his guts, even if his focus is misplaced…"_ That brief compliment was followed by Alex forced to duck to the right as the ninja threw a purple ribbon nail his way, with him then tossing a black ribbon one straight at the boy's chest.

The second nail broke open and wrapped Alex up in a sticky netting, with it spinning around his body twice over to ensure the maximum pressure on his limbs. The boy grunted to break free for a few seconds as Bang came in and punched him across a body with a few swift jabs. When strain didn't budge the netting, Alex just flexed his muscles and released a burst of fire to burn it right off.

Bang flipped back and remarked in amazement "I see! So this is the explosive attitude the poster warned me of!" Alex brushed the ashes off his arms and remarked with a glare forward "That's not referring to my powers you idiot, it's about my temperament!" He then blinked a couple times and glanced aside, whispering through a scowl "Great, I'm even insulting myself now…"

Bang raised his brows and must've got a laugh out of the comment seeing how he was snorting as he spoke "No one will argue with you there!" Alex then thrust his right hand up and thought _"Screw it, I can spend a little of my energy for this battle…"_ before sending a large fireball straight at the ninja.

The man stood still and braced himself by swinging his gauntlet before the fireball, letting it hit as he remained as still and strong as a mountain. Then as the fireball vanished from, Alex found that Bang had also disappeared. He wouldn't get a chance to detect him as the man had already dug the tips of his left toes into the back of Alex's legs to trip him up.

The boy fell back and Bang had already bent forward to get under him, raising his fist up with all his might to strike the center of the spine. A shockwave ruptured out from the top of Alex's body as it lurched back against his will. He let out another gasp of saliva as his body was sent flying into the air high above the garden.

Even at such harrowing heights, Bang was able to warp above the boy and bring his hammer of a gauntlet down onto his gut to send him plummeting straight back down. His body wrapped in air pressure from the descent, Alex barely had time to summon a mighty gale against his body that would lessen his impact with the ground. Even as he landed, Bang was right there waiting for him with a kick towards the back of his head. The boy wised up and rolled out of the way, turning himself around and slamming a palm against the ground to send a series of muddy spikes towards the ninja.

Bang flipped his right gauntlet around and punched through the foremost spike, sending a shockwave through the others to crack them apart. Alex leaped forward and dug his right leg into the shards of stone left over, launching them straight towards Bang and managing to cut through the sides of his body and parts of his arms.

"Erk…!" The ninja grunted as his body stiffened in pain for just a fleeting moment, allowing Alex the chance to dive in and smash him in the chest with a brutal right hook, with only Bang's thick pecs saving parts of his rib bones from cracking. The man dug his feet into the ground at the last second and dug up the tiles in his wake as he was pushed back.

The man then reached behind himself and flung out a parasol above Alex, which opened and released a hail of nails upon him. The boy was pricked and prodded as he held his hands over his head to swat them all away for a good three seconds. When the parasol closed up after, he leaped up and snatched it, coating it in a thin layer of steel. As he descended he used it as a bat to swing Bang's black ribbon nail back at him.

Privy to his own tricks though, the ninja hopped and spread his legs to avoid the net being unleashed upon him. However, that simply put him in the right spot for Alex to plant the steel parasol into the ground and use it to vault himself forward and kick Bang square in the chest with both feet. As he was launched away, Bang reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellow ribbon nail, flinging it forward and making it split into three other nails.

Alex rushed ahead and swatted those nails away with a casual swing before leaping off the ground and gripping the parasol in both hands, holding it pressed behind his neck as Bang was slammed against a wall. As the man bounced off it, Alex whacked his head as hard as he could with the parasol. The boy ultimately shouldn't have been surprised, however, when Bang planted his feet in the ground and pressed his skull against the parasol.

"A warrior of Ikaruga…w-will never bow to evil!" Bang's eyes continued to burn with determination as he swung his hands together with his pointer and middle fingers going upwards. "Shishigami Ninpo Hidden Arts!" He exclaimed as a body-sized pillar of fire erupted from his body, the force of it blowing Alex back into the air and knocked the parasol from his hand. The boy looked left and right quickly and saw Bang and a copy of himself diving straight at him while giving an echoed declaration of "BANG'S INFINITE CHAOS-FIST OF THE VOID!"

Alex swung his arms out and grabbed the two Bangs by the center of their crossed arms, noticing that even the copy felt real to the touch, right down to the sweat dripping from his pores. As he began to swing his body around to throw the two away, two more Bangs rose up from the front and back and smashed their fists into the chin and backside of the skull respectively.

" _T-Three clones?!"_

This was the last straw on surprises from Alex's end, as he quickly grit his teeth down and flared his eyes and nostrils open like the maddest of bulls and slammed the two clones he held into the one directly in front of him. He then swung his body around and with a flick of the wrist whipped up a series of wind blades to attack the four Bangs. When only the one behind him bled, the boy spun around and tucked his fists against his hips, setting them on fire before he sprung them forth into the man's chest.

Bang was launched by a burst of raging fire into the top of the nearby tree. He bounced off of it after the back of his giant nail split the top of the tree down the middle, and Alex had already flown over to intercept him with a back-handed punch to the gut. Bang crashed into the ground and was laid out in his own divot, forced to look up as Alex drew his hands back and started charging flames in a sphere.

But the boy ultimately didn't do so for long as he saw the state Bang was in and thought _"…No, I've already won…"_ He then clasped his hands shut to dispel the flames and then dropped to the ground with his eyes shut. Standing at the edge of the divot, the boy turned away from Bang and remarked "Have a good day Mr. Shishigami" before starting to walk away.

His advance was slowed, however, by him still sensing the presence of that dark aura around Bang's body. He stopped just fifteen feet away from the ninja and glanced over his shoulder, watching as the man pulled himself out of the divot and rose to his feet. He shook the dirt off his muscles and stood tall, laying a hand under his chin and placing another on his right knee.

"I-I cannot give up…The people of Ikaruga are counting on me to fight with all I have!" Bang's legs were shaking, his arms could barely act as support for the rest of his body, and yet he still swung his fist out and met Alex's cold gaze with a fire hotter than anything the boy could produce.

"Our hearts burn as one, a raging inferno that lights through the darkness and all who dare to inhabit within it! You can beat me, bury me, burn me…But this fire will keep burning on and on until I choose to give up! And Bang Shishigami NEVER gives up!"

Alex lowered his head and shook it a couple times, placing his hands in his pockets before he mentioned with an inkling of respect "Look Bang, your heart's in the right place, but I'm NOT the bad guy here. The poster you've seen? It was fabricated by the NOL to frame me."

"The NOL are the scum of the Earth! …But even so, they surely must have a reason for targeting you! Perhaps it has to do with that awful stench of blood I've been forced to endure from you?!" As Bang threw out an accusing finger at him, Alex closed his eyes and thought in annoyance _"Like you'd even understand…"_ he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and then lifted his head up.

"I don't even know what you're talking about. What blood could even be on my hands considering I've done nothing to your men?" Alex felt tired trying to make his point and pinched the front of his forehead, whispering bitterly "…Forget it, I'm going now."

He turned around and only took a couple steps before Bang fiercely declared "You will not run away! Stand and face your punishment like a man, fiend!" Alex gripped his hands into fists in his pockets and glared daggers over his shoulder, harshly speaking to the man "Your justice is a childish farce, Bang Shishigami."

Bang's expression became completely devastated, his mouth going agape as Alex had the gall to turn his head and walk away. The ninja clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles cracking against the skin as he grit his teeth and murmured "You would DARE insult the legacy of our departed Lord…?! That…is the LAST straw! There will be no more mercy for you, villain!"

Alex rolled his eyes, ignoring how Bang spread his legs and swung his arms over and under his head, which was hung in deep concentration as he clanked his gauntlets together and murmured "Forgive me, Lord Tenjo, but I must use this technique to take vengeance upon this fiend…!"

As Bang's eyes released actual, burning flames made from his raw determination, Alex felt a sharp increase in power and spun around, watching as Bang's body rose off the ground while he proclaimed with a mighty echo "SHISHIGAMI NINPO FORBIDDEN ART! FU-RIN-KA-ZAN!" At the same time, those four symbols he declared appeared in the air around his body as flames burst forth from the ground behind him and his body was consumed with a flashing, golden light that was luckily not buried in the dark aura that surrounded him.

His sudden increase in power sent shockwaves hurtling through the garden, knocking down all leaves in the tree and making the water coming off the fountain splash towards the sky, creating a beautiful pair of rainbows. Alex had to dig his feet hard into the ground to stop himself from being pushed back, and as he looked Bang straight in the eyes he found that the man still had traces of that dark aura mixed into his body. It was quite unsettling to see that on a man who spoke so triumphantly about justice.

"St-"

The very moment Bang landed he was gone from sight, appearing behind Alex and punching him square in the head before he could utter a single word. The boy went flying into the nearby wall and was then pinned upside-down by the burning hammer that was Bang's right fist. The pressure Bang applied cracked the wall down in a millisecond and he dragged the boy to the ground, burying him under the rubble of the crumbling wall.

" _S-So fa-…"_

Not even the boy's thoughts were able to outmatch Bang's speed, as the man punted Alex out of the rubble with a flaming kick to his hip. His body only made it even with the ninja's face before Bang ran around him and jabbed an elbow into the side of his body to flip him back upright, where he then grabbed him and delivered a hard knee to his back to send him flying upward.

Alex didn't even have time to register the pain of each blow before yet another one would strike hot through his nerves. With just the second he had, Alex thrust his hand into his right pocket and grazed the top of the Gaia Temporis, just barely activating it's ability to stop time as Bang appeared above him with fists mere millimeters from colliding with his gut.

The boy sharply put the brakes on his ascent and dove down a few feet through the monochrome atmosphere to catch his breath. He rubbed the back of his head and panted a few times, feeling a sharp pain ripping through his mind. With a grimace of the left side of his face that look a bit unhinged, Alex gasped "I-I can't believe I'm having to use this…! On BANG!" His outrage aside, he was rational enough to realize that he had no choice but to knock Bang out, otherwise the man would relentlessly pursue him.

Thus, with a swing of his burning right fist out, Alex looked towards Bang and dropped the Gaia Temporis' power, charging straight at him to throw out the hardest-hitting punch he could muster. The very millisecond before the attack could connect, Bang disappeared and Alex was left holding a fist out towards the blue sky. His vision was then assaulted by dozens of the golden ninja running circles around his body.

"Hahahaha! This is the secret technique passed down by my Lord! Are you impressed now?!" Bang's words and laughter echoed in an incredibly grating manner, and Alex yelled out as he coated his hands in violently surging electricity "You're just leaping endlessly off of empty air, I could do that when I was eleven!" He then clapped his hands together and unleashed a burst of lightning that intercepted the real Bang amongst the speeding afterimages, forcing the man to raise his arms and guard despite it making him lose the high-ground.

As Bang dropped a little bit, Alex spun around and dived after him, flipping his body around so he could assault the top of his skull with two mighty kicks. The ninja's reflexes remained top-notch, or perhaps beyond even that, as he blocked both kicks by raising his gauntlets above his head. Then he grabbed Alex by the ankle and spun him around over his head a few times, making sure to dizzy him before tossing him to the ground like a bean bag.

Though the impact was nowhere near as soft as one, as Alex's head was planted into the ground and his mind was briefly left garbled from it. Bang landed behind Alex and kicked him with a rising foot to the rear, knocking him free at the cost of tearing up a huge chunk of the ground in the process. The man then reared his right fist back and flipped the gauntlet around for a decisive, hammering blow.

Alex gained full control over his body in time to swipe his right arm out and draw his sword to block Bang's attack. The man's aura rippled and he was pushed back, with Alex swiftly spinning around and swinging his sword again to send a flurry of wind blades after the ninja. Bang sped in a curve past the right side of Alex's body and with a sharp turn got behind and leaped forward to deliver a spinning kick straight into his back.

With the sole of his boot dug into the boy's back, Bang pressed downward and slammed him to the ground, and in a millisecond he had already pulled and flung out his black ribbon nail to trap Alex in more netting. The boy's sword dropped from his hand and Bang threw a hard right hook into Alex's back to send him flying diagonally over the bridge. Bang sped over to intercept him, punching him to the other side of the garden.

Alex broke free of the netting with fire, but that mattered little as with one more punch to the back he was flung front and center with the fountain. By then, Bang appeared a few feet away as the boy swung his head around to try and find him. The man pulled the giant nail off his back and flung it straight into Alex's gut, which dragged him straight towards the front of the fountain. The tip of the nail had already dug itself into his skin and flesh, and Alex knew it would only get fatally worse as Bang charged forward with his right gauntlet swung back and an absolutely burning look of determination on his face.

"Taste justice at the hands of our Lord's last memento! SHISHIGAMI NINPO FINAL ART! THE ULTIMATE…" Bang smashed his fist right at the end of the giant nail, causing it to stab right through Alex's torso and all the organs behind it. The front of the fountain cracked from the center to near the very top and bottom, with Bang declaring triumphantly "BANG!"

Alex's head jerked back against his will, his pupils shrinking as his face was flushed of blood, most of which was either dripping from the massive wound in his body or in his throat from him to gargle and eventually choke on. He struggled to turn his head and look down at Bang, his thoughts thrust into a whirlwind of emotions as the man seemed almost proud of what he had done.

"Your honor has been avenged, Lord Tenjo!"

The boy thought there was something very wrong about the way Bang spoke just then, but that rationality would soon be drowned in a rising tidal wave of pure rage. All other feelings were swept up as it crashed against the confines of his mind, and with what strength he had left the boy glared down at Bang and grit his teeth against the flow of blood, giving off the appearance of a grizzled demon as his eyes burned with a seething hatred.

With a raspy voice, Alex's last words this time were a venomous curse towards his slayer "You…idiot…!" Then, all life was flushed from his eyes as Bang ripped the nail free, with his body dropping flat on it's side like a rag doll as the rest of the blood seeped into the fountain and turned it a garish shade of crimson.

And in a matter of minutes, that shade would stick to the fountain forevermore, tainting the once pristine garden. But for a certain despicable snake, that putrid look only made it more beautiful. Long after Bang and his 100 subordinates had left the garden, the green-haired man known as Terumi strolled into the area as though it was just another day for him, laying a hand on top of his fedora as he hummed a personally favored tune.

He stopped at the center of the carnage that unfolded and looked up, staring straight at Alex's rotting corpse as was drenched with wrinkles and decay on the fountain. At first he cracked a small but curious smile, saying in a suave and aloof tone "Oh my, that sweaty fool really did a number on you, didn't he?"

But after a few short seconds, his smile grew wider and more malicious, as he creaked open his eyelids and glared forward with his slit yellow eyes, saying in a more outwardly bombastic and wicked tone "Serves you right for trying to get up in my shit, little boy! Hehehehehe, oh, but I KNOW you aren't done yet…!" He swung his arms out and pulled his hat off, his hair flaring up into a spikier, more maniacal look as his eyes widened to show the absolute madness and glee he felt at this moment.

"Well guess what birdie, this is MY hunt now, and you and that little bitch are going suffer like the insignificant prey you are! So please, come back again…and again AND AGAIN AND AGAIN as many TIMES as you like! I will be more than happy to gorge on that delectable anguish, that oh so SUCCULENT despair…Until you are even more of a dried, withered husk than that sad sack of shit I see before me now!"

He was so excited he began to pant, making him slowly take pause and then place the hat squarely back onto his head, remarking in his more well-mannered tone "And even then…I'll just start all over again." With one last wicked grin, the man turned around and left this wretched site behind…

 _Next Time: Cold Lunacy_


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: A Frozen Madness**

Finding herself going through another time loop, Shina didn't linger very long in the forest she awoke in and went straight to Kagutsuchi. She landed in the usual alleyway, but decided to make a sharp turn to the right to go away from the direction of Litchi's clinic. As she put a foot down on the staircase going to another level of the city she glanced back and thought back to the final moments she spent with that doctor.

Her lips folded into a pucker and she laid a hand on top of her chest, slowly looking away and shaking her head just a little bit. _"I wish you well, Ms. Litchi…"_ She then spun her body around and decided to take a slow stroll through the city, laying her hands against the sides of her pockets and lowering her head just enough to be able to still see the people around her.

"What do I do now…?" She whispered with a slight melancholy in her voice. Pausing for a moment to let out a drawn out hum of "Ooooh…" she then looked up at the clear sky. It looked just the same as it always did, the sun was in the same position, the same clouds were about…Some things could change between time loops, but the way the environment looked would always remain the same.

Looking around, Shina found herself not finding as much amazement in the city as she did the first time she had arrived. Now it just seemed like any other city, and that normality was starting to weigh on her mind and make her body feel sluggish as she kept walking forward. "This is the third time I'm seeing this place now…Kinda losing its impact at this point."

With her eyelids sagging partway shut, Shina shook her head a little and murmured "I need to figure something out…"

She found her gaze moving towards a bench that stood before a circular enclosed garden of roses and, with her body feeling as though it was three times heavier than usual, she chose to go over and seat herself upon that. She fell onto it with a plop while sliding her hands down the sides of his pants to place them into her pockets. Leaning back and stretching her legs out in a straight slant, she found a bit of relaxation in the strong rosy scent coming from behind.

"Aaaah…that's more like it." Closing her eyes, she then curled her legs back so not to be in the way of the people walking about. Entering a state of tranquility, her mind was able to focus a little easier on a possible plan of attack regarding the artifact. At least, it would've done that were it not for a particular conversation penetrating her current blissful state.

"Man, can you believe this? Why do criminals have to be wandering through Kagutsuchi today of all days?"

Peeking her right eye open and turning her head, Shina found a couple adolescents standing near a street lamp post, which was surrounded by wanted posters and advertisements. The second boy remarked with dismay "I know right? I hope someone puts those bastards in their place."

Cracking a smile, Shina found herself shouting out in a teasing tone "Hey! Watch your language there!" The two boys looked her way and let out a drawn out "Huuuh?" while tilting their heads in confusion. Shina waved a hand beside her face and remarked in a forcibly eerie tone "The Grim Reaper is attracted to the sound of cursing, and he reaaaaaally likes to go after naughty little boys who don't watch their mouths."

"…Is this chick for real?" One boy said while staring at abject confusion at the other, who was shivering just a little bit from the waist downward. With a chuckle, the other boy smiled and said "L-Lets just go somewhere else…!" He then sprang off with a sprint, confusing his soon to be pursuing friend. Shina kicked herself off the bench and did a couple twirls on her over to the post, where she planted her feet on the ground and leaned a bit to see what she could find.

Her immediate reaction was a widening of her eyes and a frozen stare focused dead center on a wanted poster of her friend. Her face kept on smiling as she slowly drew a hand to the poster and ripped it right off, holding it nearly an inch away from her face so she could analyze every atom of detail this thing held. Puffing her cheeks to hold back laughter as she looked at that rather…"colorful" interpretation of Alex's face, Shina then read over the details in a manner of seconds, at which point her face unfroze so she could droop her features in tune with her sluggish sigh.

"So Alex really DID break into the Kagutsuchi HQ…" With a drab whisper, Shina crumbled the poster up and placed it in her pocket, standing back up and stating stoically "I'm…really not surprised."

Pulling a hand from her pocket and rubbing the chin, Shina perked her eyes up and thought _"Though if he went there last time, then he'll probably go straight for there THIS time too!"_ Cracking a wide smile, Shina pulled her hand away and firmly nodded her head triumphantly.

"Looks like I got a plan after all! Thank you for your complete disregard for the law Alex!" Shouting that out got Shina to slap the front of her mouth and spun around, looking a little flustered as a few people looked at her with a bizarre glance. She fluttered a hand out under her nose, closed her eyes and said "I mean uhh…Curse that rapscallion!"

As the people shook their heads and went on their way, Shina let out an awkward laugh and clenched her teeth, thinking with a nervous sweat drop down the side of her face _"…T-Time to go, methinks…"_ She then sprinted on ahead, remembering that she could take a tram to reach the NOL HQ with ease.

On the way to that part of town, she thought _"I can't believe Terumi put out wanted posters for Alex…Shouldn't have expected any less from that conniving snake, but that's SUCH an abuse of the time loops, ugh!"_ Gritting her teeth and swinging her head back a little in disgust, she found herself looking at the brighter side of things _"Well, at least it seems he hasn't noticed me yet…"_

Then her thoughts wandered towards the final moments of the last loop, particularly the conversation she had with the cold-blooded vampire herself, Rachel. _"And not even Death herself could impart a lesson on morals to such a trouble child."_ With having to outrun the apocalypse now a distant memory, Shina had been able to realize just what Rachel had meant when she said that.

" _So Alex must've fought Nu and…lost?"_ That was such a strange thought for her to put together that she ended up arching her brows and pushing her lips to the left side of her face in confusion.

" _But Alex has that Phoenix Form of his…That thing seemed pretty invincible, at least from what I saw…"_ She though that while vividly recalling him using that form to fend off Sol Badguy's Dragon Install on the last world. With a curious murmur, she perked her brows up and whispered "Guess I'll just hafta ask him when I catch up."

All those self-reflections on past events had distracted Shina so much that she had to kick her heels back to grind to a stop before she ran right past the street she needed to go down to reach the tram station. Scrambling back, Shina ended up accidentally brushing a hand against someone's chest and having to turn around to apologize before she straightened herself out to make a clean sprint towards the escalator.

Once there she laid a hand on the railing and leaned forward to take a deep breath. Grinning widely, Shina murmured "With all this sprinting my calves are going to be as tight as mom's by the time I get home, heheh!" At the top of the escalator Shina immediately made a sharp turn and hopped to the right to end up in front of the ticket booth. The same person was running the shift as the first time she was here, and like before she would greet him pleasantly.

"Howdy there! I'm looking to get a ticket to the top level of Kagutsuchi, are any trams running today?" The man lifted his head up and remarked "Yes ma'am, our trams run for 16 hours every day. You say you need a ticket to the top floor? That's NOL HQ territory. What's sending you that way this lovely day?"

"Just have some business to take care of up there. Personal stuff, ya know how it is." Shina gave a casual shrug to the man, who engaged in momentary laughter and slapped his right knee before replying dully "Personal business? Off to meet a boyfriend or something?" Shina's face turned bright red and she quickly stammered out "N-Nothing like that! Just gonna see a relative!"

"Well, just letting you know it's going to cost you quite a bit."

Shina widened her eyes for a moment upon hearing those dreaded words. It took her another moment to remember that she didn't have a NOL outfit this time for the free ticket. With a slightly worried smirk, she stuttered "H-How much we talkin'?" The ticket man replied "About 5,000 units, more or less."

The girl's eyes nearly flung out of their sockets like they were being propelled by a slingshot, and she had to bite her tongue before she slandered the man on such an outrageous price. Stuck in a tense pause, Shina found her thoughts read by the man as he raised his brows and remarked "What, you came here without enough money? Geez, frickin' kids thinking that I run a charity around here…"

He turned his head away while shaking it disapprovingly. His scathing comment stung quite a bit, especially as Shina knew he was exposing his own hypocrisy without even realizing it. "B-But last time…" Shina wanted to call him out on that, but one piercing glare from the man made her go silent and turn around. Figuring it wasn't worth the effort, she clenched her teeth while noticing that she had at some point put a fist against her chest.

Unfurling it with embarrassment, she decided to just go sit down on the nearby bench and think about her next move. Kicking her legs back and forth, Shina whispered "It'd be easy to fly up there, but…I don't wanna cause any commotion." As she leaned back and let out a sigh, a couple of people reached the top of the escalator, the shorter of the two speaking in a quiet, hesitant voice "Excuse me sir…We need a couple tickets to the NOL HQ."

The meek tone entered Shina's ears and ran through her mind like a stampede, bringing with it only pain instead of the joy she wishes she could experience hearing that voice. Drawn to that sound even still, Shina slowly tilted her head and let her hair drape past the back of the bench. Standing before the ticket booth was Noel Vermillion, wearing that warm, concealing coat of hers and carrying the same timid demeanor as she did before.

Standing beside her was a tall, lanky man with a fancy suit, fedora hat, and striking short green hair. He presented himself as a calm and pleasurable figure, but with one close of the eyes Shina stared right at a vile, dark green aura that catching sight of made her feel nothing but revulsion. Gritting her teeth and muttering their true name bitterly "Yuuki Terumi…" she swiftly sat upright and laid her hands on her knees when it appeared that man was turning his head to look her way.

Instead, the man, who right now went around the guise of the simple-mannered Hazama, looked at a weakly speaking Noel and told her "Miss Vermillion, allow me to handle this, you can just sit right down and take a break." Meekly bowing her head to the man and saying "I-I'm sorry Captain Hazama…" she turned and walked towards the benches.

Shina's heart skipped a beat and her chest felt tighter and tighter with every step closer Noel took towards her. Turning her head away and biting down on her lower lip tightly enough that she should've drawn blood, Shina took in a deep breath through her nostrils and thought _"Why did I have to run into HER again? What do I do what do I do what do I do?!"_

Flustered like a middle-schooler in love, Shina would only be broken out of this frantic state when Noel paused a good foot away and asked in a soft, concerned tone "Excuse me…is everything alright?" Shina swung her head back around and with a brief gasp of exasperation she hastily replied "I-It's fine! I-It's only you after all Noel!" Then with a shrill "Eep!" she sucked her lips inward and her face turned bright red.

Noel raised her brows and stammered in surprised "H-Huh…? How do you know my name?" _"Shit!"_ Shina thought while forcing a huge grin and muttering "Y-You look like a Noel…Pretty like the snow on Christmas morning!"

" _Shina, SHUT UP!"_

Yet despite her running her mouth, her choice of words brought a slight blush to Noel's face and made her remark "O-Oh…r-really?" The girl lowered her head and kicked her right foot up, finding it hard to reply with "I-I was born on Christmas, actually…"

"…No kidding?" Shina said in a more natural tone, giving her company a couple blinks as they lifted their head up and said "Y-Yeah…" Then, without pause, Noel slid down onto the bench beside Shina and held her hand out to say "It's probably redundant but…My name's Noel. Who are you?"

Shina looked down at the hand, staring at it for a few seconds with her eyelids partway shut. Looking up at Noel's innocently curious face, Shina cracked a smile and shook her hand, telling her happily "The name's Shina, Shina Aurora!"

As they parted hands, Noel inquired "So where are you taking the tram to?" Shina laid her hands back on her knees and remarked "Oh, I was wanting to go to the NOL HQ to uhhh…meet up with someone!"

"Meet with someone? Oh, I see, you must be a relative of one of the soldiers here to celebrate New Year's Eve." Noel remarked, and Shina hung her head a bit to speak "I didn't bring enough money with me to buy a ticket though…"

As Noel started to open her mouth, a ticket slipped in front of her face, courtesy of Hazama who was leaning in on the bench beside her. "Here you go Lieutenant, one ticket for you, one ticket for me…All free of charge." Once Noel plucked the ticket her and Shina looked as Hazama spun his ticket on his pointer finger and then whipped it into his pants pocket in a flash. The man then crossed his legs and leaned forward, giving a curious glare through his closed eyes towards Shina.

"And just who are you supposed to be…?"

Noel spoke up for Shina, remarking in a soft voice "Captain Hazama, Shina here doesn't have enough money to go to the NOL HQ." Hazama pulled back a little and said in a dull, uncaring tone "Oh no, what a shame."

Noel tilted her head and inquired "Captain…she's trying to visit a family member for New Years…Can't we get her a ticket?" Hazama sighed and laid a hand on top of his hat, looking towards the sky and remarking with a soft but blunt tone "Lieutenant, we're NOT running a charity here."

But then a light smile caressed his cheeks, and from Shina's perspective it hid a mischievous desire underneath even as he relented and said kindly "Oh, but what the hell, so long as she doesn't go snooping around where she doesn't belong, I suppose there's no harm in taking her along with us." Hazama then got to his feet and strolled on over to the booth, resting his hands in his pockets.

Shina glared at Hazama until Noel turned her head, at which point she put on a smile and said "You didn't have to do that…" Noel closed her eyes and replied empathetically "No one should have to be alone on New Years…It's the least I could do."

Shina cracked a small smile and gave her thanks, and a couple moments later Hazama walked off and casually tossed a ticket over to Shina. Standing between her and Noel, the man peered his serpentine eyes open a bit and with a sly smirk said "Have a Happy **Nu** Year, Shina."

As the man sat himself back down, Shina widened her eyes and a shiver went through her spine. _"Wait…D-Did he just say what I thought he said?"_ She shook her head a couple times and glanced away, letting out a light chuckle and murmuring "Naaaaw, can't be…"

In a matter of minutes, the tram rolled up to the station and the three gave their tickets so they can take their ride. Inside the tram, Noel and Shina sat together while Hazama leaned back on the bench across from her. Shina tensely nestled her hands atop her kneecaps and glanced at the two. On one side, there was a friend who would never remember their bond ever again. On the other side was a malicious madman who more than likely had hundreds of ideas churning through his twisted mind on how to make the two of them suffer.

Shina glared at Hazama, who was laying his elbows atop the back of the bench seat and glancing out the window. Unusual for her, her heart raced with pure, unbridled aggression towards this one man. For now, he would take on the guise of a mild-mannered Captain and watch from afar, but when all was said and done he'd do everything in his power to bring despair upon the world. Remembering such atrocities as him traumatizing Noel to the point of breaking her mind, a vicious thought burned itself onto Shina's mind.

" _I should kill him now…This monster…He's even worse than Gravitus!"_

She clenched her hands tightly around the kneecaps, her knuckles making a light crackle. Hazama flinched and then slowly twisted his slimy face around with a smirk on her face that simply chilled Shina's spine. He had to have sensed her aggression, especially as he casually inquired "Is something the matter there? Might I take a… **stab** at the problem?"

Shina's eyes widened and her heart jumped against her rib cage, with her feeling sick with Hazama's choice of words, especially as he opened his eyes and smiled a little more. His attempts at unnerving would stop the moment Noel turned her head around and asked "Huh? What's going on?"

Shina took one look at Noel and realized one obvious, unequivocal fact…

" _She doesn't know anything about Hazama's true self…I-I'd be committing murder. And I can't do that in front of her…And besides…"_ She looked at Hazama and let out a sigh while realizing _"If I somehow don't succeed this loop, I don't need to give him even more of a reason to go after me…H-He seems to have seen my first fight with Nu…"_

With a small, tense gulp whileclosing her eyes, Shina turned her head and said "Guess I'm just nervous about seeing my relative at work…"

Then, the tram shook a bit back and forth by a surge of power flying through the air. "Aaah! W-What was that?!" Noel sprung to her feet and ran to the other side of the tram, with Shina following close behind. Hazama turned his head around and looked out the window with them. They looked down and saw a beautiful, which was currently filled with a bunch of ninjas flying every which way.

"Oh dear, seems there's a feisty fighter down there." Hazama contributed his colorful commentary on the matter, while Shina pressed her hands against the window and thought _"That must be Alex down there. Uhhh, I wonder if I should go help him…?"_

As an explosion went off and a few dozen ninjas went flying across the area, Shina shook her head and realized _"…N-Never mind. H-He'll come here when he's done…"_ She then pulled away and went back to her seat, while Noel remarked "Captain, shouldn't we go down there? This is a disturbance of the peace!"

"Relaaax, Lieutenant. We have our duties to take care of. We don't have time to deal with the scuffles of some vigilante ninjas." As Hazama leaned back, Noel turned at him and mentioned "But sir-"

"Sit down, Lieutenant, we're almost there." Hazama got firm in tone with her, and with a meek sigh she sat down. Shina glared at the man again, but decided not to give him anymore reasons to have herself on his bad side. Quietly sitting the rest of the trip out, Shina was glad when the tram finally reached the top of the city.

The three left the tram and made their way to the staircase of the HQ. Having seen this sight three times by now, Shina was more bitter in the way she stared towards that impressive building than she was in awe.

Hazama laid his hands on his pockets and let out a stretching yawn, and with a couple smacks of his lips he remarked "Well, I'll leave things up to you from here Lieutenant." Noel and Shina turned around and looked at the man, with Noel in particular asking "H-Huh? You're not coming with us?"

"You have your job, I've got mine Lieutenant. Besides, surely you wouldn't require my assistance for something as simple as opening an door, yes?" Even with a pleasant tone, there was something insulting about how he said that. Noel responded meekly "N-No sir, it's just-"

"Then focus on your mission…But keep an eye on your little friend there will you? Make sure she finds who she's looking for, alright." With a sly smile, Hazama slowly turned around and made his way towards the staircase. Shina stuck her tongue out at him as he left and then turned to Noel, who let out a sigh and said "W-Well…Here we go."

She turned around and started to head up the staircase, and as Shina followed her she asked pleasantly "You alright?" Noel shook her head and muttered "O-Oh..It's nothing." With a bright smile Shina remarked "If you need to talk I'm always here for you!"

Noel turned her head and with a blank expression remarked "Well…I don't know why, but I DO feel pretty comfortable around you, Shina." Shina chuckled at that, while in her mind making a tired remark of _"…If only I could say what I want to…"_

At the top of the stairs, Noel approached the imposing doors and raised her brows, remarking in a puzzled tone "That's strange…The Ars seal has already been deactivated. Someone must've arrived here already…" She then laid a hand on the door and took a deep breath in, reassuring herself with a self-reflective mantra "You can do it Noel…D-Don't be scared."

Even with her spindly arms, Noel was able to push one of the doors open, with Shina covering the other side. The doors stuttered and creaked, echoing through the hallways that lie beyond them. Once inside the building, Shina was welcomed by the familiar sensation of emptiness that lied within. She closed her eyes and found that something still covered the insides of that place and prevented her from sensing the aura of anyone there.

When she opened her eyes Noel had already gone on ahead, though at a rather cautious pace. Her gaze moved around left and right while she let out a occasional cry of "Hello?! Is anyone here?!" Her voice only reached the walls and echoed off of them, and the two could hear them even at the center of the building. Once they reached there, Noel hung her head and murmured "Where is everyone…?"

Shina looked at her, finding herself again looking at…

"Nrghh…!" She closed her eyes and swung her head to the left, thinking angrily _"No! Enough of this 'again' stuff! It's not FAIR that I have to stand by her like this…S-She's my friend, she deserves to know what's going on! I don't care if it makes me look crazy!"_ Shina opened her mouth, ready to let spill a flood of knowledge upon the already puzzled Noel, but…

" _Click…clack…click…clack…"_

The slow descent of footsteps from the staircase behind the two drew both their attention away from the crisis at hand. A person was walking towards them, someone that was not there the last time around. They were a slender, decently built young man with short, slick blonde hair and a cold, green-eyed gaze. His outfit was fancier than Noel's, showing that he was of higher rank, and consisted of a black turtleneck and leggings under a white Japanese-style tunic. He wears white gloves, knee-high military boots with gold crossed over the front, and a sapphire colored jacket with red lining and very long, detached sleeves. At his side was a sword held in a winter-y sheath.

As he got within fifteen feet of the two, the man's eyes scanned them over like he was a robot in disguise. He held a hand at the side of his body and didn't say a word until Noel quietly referred to him by his rank "Major…What are you doing here?"

The moment the man focused his gaze on Noel, the tension in the room gradually began to raise. Shina took a couple steps back and felt her heart racing. _"This is…murderous intent…"_ The one Noel referred to as Major was known by many others as Jin Kisaragi, the Hero of Ikaruga…and to very, VERY few as the brother of Ragna the Bloodedge. He was also a man with a heart as cold as the Nox Nyctores he wielded, the ice blade Yukianesa, and the fact that he was here this time was very worrisome.

He responded to Noel with the roughness expected of his disposition "Lieutenant…I was going to ask you the very same thing." Noel widened her eyes and stammered uneasily "O-Oh…right." She then tried to present herself more professionally as she drew a hand out from her cloak and remarked "Major, you've been ordered to withdraw. The council is willing to overlook what's happened if you come back right away."

Jin lowered his head and didn't say a word. Noel then further established "Major, you are a decorated war hero…If you don't come back, you'll be tried as a deserter, and that will cause an uproar in the Librarium. Why…why are you even in Kagutsuchi in the first place, Major?"

Jin's tone suddenly turned into a calm aggression as he remarked "Get out of my way" which caused Noel to respond with a confused "H-Huh? Major, what are you…?"

The man slowly reached for the handle of his sword and his face twisted into a more unhinged shape, with wrinkles forming on his forehead while he yelled out "Who…who…Who the HELL do you think you are?!" As Noel stood motionless and murmured the man's rank, he gave a bitter scowl and clicked his sword free from it's sheath, a puff of frost coming forth as water particles drew inward and created a blade of permafrost that he lunged swiftly at Noel's chest.

With Noel pulling back and screaming at the top of her lungs, she failed to have her eyes open as Shina thrust her rapier out and covered it in aura to block Yukianesa's strike. The moment the blade touched the aura, frost crept along it and threatened to consume the blade underneath. Shina pulled back and shattered the aura for her own safety, then stood in front of Jin and glared at him as he drew his blade back into his sheath and raised his brows in confusion.

"You don't want this fight, Mr. Kisaragi. I'd suggest you turn back, now!"

As Shina stood in front of her, Noel slowly poked her head up and laid her hands out beside her hips, remarking in an awe-struck tone "S-Shina…What are you…?" Shina glanced back and gave the girl a wink, telling her "Don't worry Noel, I got your back" and once she looked back at Jin she finished "Summon Bolverk. We've got no choice but to incapacitate Major Kisaragi."

"H-How do you know about Bolverk? …And…W-Why does that not sound strange to me that you DO know?" Shina found that comment rather odd, but things would only get stranger as Jin cracked a twisted smile and started murmuring to himself "Y-You're…an obstacle too…"

With his eyes widening in a maddened frenzy, Jin laid a hand across the right side of his face and lurched forward, remarking in a more high-pitched glee "Yes…I-I must destroy you…You and the flames…Must be eradicated! I've seen it…the inferno will destroy us all, and you…You're the one who'll enable it to happen!"

Shina perked her brows up and went "…Huh?" while Jin swung his hand out and exclaimed "Perish, scum!" before summoning a blade made of ice that flew right at Shina's face. The girl had a second to throw her body sideways to get out of the way of the attack. Jin then drew Yukianesa and slashed in an upward arc, with Shina blocking the attack with the blunt edge of her rapier and then pushing herself forward as hard as she could to get away. She dispels her weapon to be rid of the frost and then swung her hand down on the Gunslinger Drive.

Right after the change in appearance occurs, Shina fired her pistols upon Jin and managed to hit him a few times while he grunted and leapt back. Lowering her firearms, she then exclaimed "You're just being manipulated into thinking that way Jin! Don't you notice-" taking a glance at Jin's perfectly normal looking body, Shina paused and whispered in confusion "…The strange aura…?"

"Shut up!" Jin yelled out and went in for a swing of his blade, only for a pair of guns crossing his body to force him back before he was hit with a small burst of energy. He turned his frenzied glare towards Noel, who had taken her coat off and drawn Bolverk towards her superior officer. "Major…If you are going to resist, I have no choice but to take you back by force." She said with a stern discipline.

Jin held his sword at the hip and the sheath by the other, growling in a furious voice "Get out of my way…" before he lashed his blade at the ground with enough force to send a towering wave of frost flying at Noel before yelling in anger "NOEL VERMILLION!"

The wave of ice was blown up by an aura rocket from Shina, causing chunks of ice to fall to the ground and break down into a fine mist. Jin widened his eyes and then swung his body around, using his sheath to block a series of pistol shots from Shina. He then did a short hop and swung Yukianesa down to create a flat icicle that he lands on to propel himself straight at Shina, using his sheath to block more of her attacks as she flipped back to keep her distance.

Noel fired another Optic Barrel aimed at Jin's ice, but the man lunged off it before it broke and slashed his sword straight forward at Shina's head. Before she found it dislodged from her neck, Shina swerved to the left and then plunged a wide-barreled shotgun into the side of Jin's body. With the trigger halfway pulled, she was only stopped by Jin stamping his feet on the ground and plunging the blade into the front of the gun to start freezing it over.

Shina pulled back and threw her gun to the ground to shatter it, quickly whipping out an SMG and rapid-firing bullets towards Jin. The man widened his eyes like a maniac and swung his body downward, swinging Yukianesa up to release three flashes of rising ice to absorb the bullets.

With Shina providing a decent distraction, Noel ran behind Jin and swung her right leg up to try and kick him in the face when he stood up. He caught her by the center of the boot with his sheath and then aggressively growled, stabbing his sword straight at her exposed underside. She gracefully did a side somersault to avoid the attack, then pulled Bolverk on Jin to fire a few short-range shots. He swung his sword forward and a wing of ice was pulled forth from his shoulder blade to block the attacks.

That wing shattered and Jin leaped at Noel, but he was left pausing when Shina pierced through his earlier ice walls with a hot sniper bullet and managed to graze his left leg. Noel then swung her right leg up, leaving a crescent of energy as she struck Jin square in the chest. The man gasped out a few drops of saliva before his body was launched straight into the ceiling. Stuck in his imprint for a moment, he was forced to listen as Noel looked at him with concern and begged him "Major, please stop this!"

Jin first wrenched Yukianesa from the ceiling and exclaimed "Don't tell me what to do you BITCH!" before proceeding to pull the rest of his body free and swinging his blade out to send three blades of ice towards Noel. The girl was taken aback by his rage and left stiff in place. Luckily, her guardian Gunslinger was right in the nick of time, vaulting over the wall and shooting down the ice blades with precise aim.

Jin was still flying down towards Noel with blade drawn back for a decisive swing, so Shina made haste to plant herself on the ground and make some gunboots so she could launch herself straight forward, exclaiming in a panic "Noel, keep it together!"

As the girl seemed to be snapped out of her predicament with that caring warning, Shina stopped herself right below Jin's path and thrust her right fist into his chest and created a shotgun gauntlet, pounding him with a concussive blast of aura that dazed and knocked him back into the air a little. After Noel shook her head to compose herself, she turned both Bolverks into a handheld minigun and exclaimed "Shina, move aside!"

Shina nodded her head and flipped a few times back until she was behind Noel, who stood her ground and fired a powerful spray of energy bullets right into Jin's body. A tremble shook through Noel's body and rocked the ground as her bullets hammered Jin repeatedly into a nearby column. Noel then spun around and created a long rifle, loading an impressive sized load of ammunition into a single rocket and aiming it towards Jin.

"This is going to sting Major!" She exclaimed almost apologetically before firing the rocket straight at him. Jin wasn't done yet though, as he ripped himself from the wall and slashed through the rocket with a blurring slash from Yukianesa. The halves froze over and flew past the sides of the column, blowing up upon making contact with the heavenly statue and the second floor's fencing. The explosions cast an eerie shade upon Jin as he landed and wobbled a bit like a puppet, with a grin stretching from ear to ear.

Noel lowered her arms and returned Bolverk to it's original state, whispering in an impressed, respectful tone "So this is the power of a Librarium elite…" Shina whipped her pistols beside her face and remarked "Well right now you can't think like that. He's behaving like a criminal…we have to restrain him."

Jin pulled his head back and started laughing. It was an event far more chilling than anything he had thrown out so far, and this was given an addendum of him remarking in a rather unhinged tone "You can't restrain me…Both of you are weak…Weak and useless! So get out of my GODDAMN WAY!" He then lashed his sword at the ground, this time much harder than before to create an even faster wave of ice straight at Noel.

Shina quickly swung his left leg up to kick a surprised Noel out of the way, then spun her leg around to the left before it could be consumed by the frost. The wave of frost created a divided wall between the two, and Jin rode up it's slight slant with another icicle so he'd quickly be above Shina. His downward slash was avoided with a duck back of the upper body, and Shina fired a few pistols shots into the exposed parts of Jin's chest.

The man let out a pained few grunts as he tumbled down the side of his wall and landed on his feet, spinning around and sliding back along the ice for a few feet. He stabbed his blade into the ground and a small ring of ice etched itself around Shina's legs. With a chill biting at her ankles, she quickly hopped back to avoid being struck by a tombstone of ice that thrust forth, then with a swing of her right arm she created a knife launching gun and pulled on the trigger to slice through the top of it, sending that chunk into the air.

Jin draws his sword in a circular flash and froze the knife to pieces, then kept it held back as Shina leapt into the air and fired a shotgun into the ice chunk to send it flying at him. "WORTHLESS!" He brazenly exclaimed before swiping forth his blade with all his might to shatter the chunk, the diamond dust flying onto and past his body before dissolving.

His body was then struck with a pair of crossing guns along with the ensuing small burst of energy, which left him briefly stunned. Before another Optic Barrel could reach him, Jin spun away sideways with a couple hops and then swung Yukianesa downward. Spinning his sheathe as protection from Shina's bullets, he rode another icicle straight towards the wall and stabbed into it, making a sharp protrusion of ice thrust out from the other side.

Shina yelled out in worry "Noel!" but quickly got a response from her as she panted on the other side "I-It's ok…I can do this!" Jin quickly leaped off the icicle and stabbed his blade into the bottom of the wall. From up high, Shina could just barely see long spikes of ice thrusting forth from the other side. Noel had to have been running away, but she would be pinned down soon enough.

Quickly pulling together a cannonball launcher over her right shoulder, Shina aimed at the far end of the wall and exclaimed "Heads up Noel, I'm making an opening!" before firing upon the tail end of the wall. An opening is shattered through, and Noel just manages to roll her way back to the battle before an ice spike could stab through her. However, Jin had one last spike to produce from the corner of the wall, but after a gasp of shock Shina swung her left arm up and shot the dead center of the spike to shatter it to dust.

Noel swung to the left and freaked out meekly for a moment, leaning forward to let out a sigh of relief before the heat of battle drew her head up so she could exclaim a warning to her ally "Shina, on your left!" The girl spun in that direction with a curious hum just in time to duck back and avoid a massive arrow of ice. She then kept the momentum of her duck going to flip and land on the ground, where Jin thrust his left hand out and sent a few ice blades her way.

Shina shot a few bullets to disperse the blades, for a moment puckering her lips up and thinking _"Alex sure is taking his sweet time with those ninjas…"_ before switching to the sniper rifle and firing a piercing bullet at Jin's right arm. The man drew his blade in a millisecond and sliced the bullet down, a gaze of hatred burning past the length of Yukianesa.

Shina didn't let herself be fazed by such unfounded rage and leaped up, firing a barrage of bullets from her pistols. Jin swerved left and right rapidly and sliced his blade to deflect every bullet, while Noel ran in beside him and managed to go in for a high-speed leaping kick. Jin swung his left arm out to block the attack with his sheath again, but Noel merely curved her foot forward and use the sheath as a means of getting overhead.

There she flipped upside-down and aimed Bolverk downward, assaulting Jin's head with a bombardment of short-ranged blasts that proved to be enough to drop him to his knees. "B-Bitch…!" He grunted forth in a stubborn rage before stabbing Yukianesa into the ground, creating four sharp spikes that enclosed up around his body. Before Noel could fall upon them, Shina fired a slicing disc from one hand and then shattered the broken off spikes with four quick pistol bullets.

Noel then spread her legs and landed atop two of the remaining poles, aiming her guns downward and attempting to fire upon Jin. The man used his sword as protection, but it left the front of his body vulnerable to Shina's next attack, which was a pair of bolos fired from a slingshot. Her attempt to wrap him up would be foiled as Jin angrily swung his left arm out and discharged energy from his body like a shockwave, shattering the ice Noel was on along with Shina's bolos.

Noel tumbled backwards and landed on her rear, while Jin stood up and did a slow twirl around, raising a perfectly vertical Yukianesa above his head while a blood red emblem depicting a thinner version of his sword stabbed through some sort of fancy snowflake appeared behind him. With Jin's face painted with a gleeful smile, he exclaimed "Time for you to die! Absolute…" Knowing full well what was coming next, Shina quickly kicked off the ground and flew at Noel, wrapping her arms around her slender waist and picking her up as Jin finished his sentence with "ZERO!" and stabbed the ground.

Ice spread out across the entire floor and crept partway up the walls and columns, turning this once beautiful foyer into a lifeless, arctic wasteland. There was no rhyme or reason to the way the ice spread about, it was just chaos incarnate. Jin stood in the center of the chaos and ripped his sword out, and just like that all the ice shattered and created a foggy veil of frosted dust.

Shina used her scouter to pin-point Jin's location in the center of it all, concentrating even as the cold was nipping at their bare skin like a swarm of frosted termites. Letting go of Noel onto a floating platform of aura, Shina pointed at his direction and said "Let 'em have it Noel!" The girl nodded her head and flung herself off the platform, aiming her Bolverks downward and exclaiming "Not even you can survive this one Major!" before firing an endless bombardment of bullets straight at Jin.

The man lashed his sword back in a circle, kicking back most of the frost in the air and exposing Noel's attack to him. He then swung the blade forward and met the barrage with a relentless series of ice blades. Jin then pulled back and drew Yukianesa like it was an arrow while Noel flipped backwards and created a rocket launcher. With wings of ice spreading out beside the forming arrow, Jin widened his eyes and exclaimed "Time for you to die, SCUM!"

"No matter how much you resist, I AM taking you back Major Kisaragi!"

The two exchanged their determination and fired their respective attacks off. The arrow and rocket collided full force and blasted ice all across the room in the ensuing explosion, with Jin sliding back and Noel being pushed towards the ground. She then swung Bolverk beside her hips and discharged some ammunition before running straight at Jin with weapons crossed under her chin.

Jin swung Yukianesa beside his hip and coldly spoke "You're an eyesore…" before his blade could be drawn though, the back of his left hand was hit with a particularly sharp shot that burning a hole in his glove and shot pain through his nerves. Shina had managed to get behind Noel and fire that bullet past her right shoulder, and with a satisfied smile she held her smoking gun up and let Noel handle the rest.

Getting right in front of Jin, Noel fiercely glared at him and a blood-red version of her symbol appeared around her body as she exclaimed "Releasing Armagus!" Before the Major could react, Noel fired a point-blank shot and bound him in a pair of crossed purple guns and a bright red normal cross. Noel then pulled back and fired an energy needle into Jin's body, walking forward and twirling her guns around while rapidly assaulting him with even more needles.

Turning around behind him, Noel spun her guns back and fired a few more needles into him before leaping over his body and assaulting him with just a few more needles. By the time Jin looked more like a cactus than a living being, Noel held one gun above her head and the other one right beside her hip, then clanged the two handles together before her waist as the needles reached critical mass and created a pillared explosion of energy that Jin could be heard growling in pain from within.

As the energy faded, Jin fell to the ground hard on his gut and his head lurched up with mouth stuck agape. Noel quickly spun around and looked at the man, whose clothes were covered in holes and blood was dripping from some of them. Jin dug his nails into the floor and raised his head up, a maniacal scowl on his face as he growled through his gritted teeth "How…how dare you…You damn…obstacle!"

He pulled himself forward just a tiny bit and weakly grabbed onto Noel's right foot. In a matter of seconds though, his hand slid off and his face fell flat on the floor, and he fell unconscious. Noel put Bolverk away and collapsed to her knees, her lower legs spreading left and right while she used her hands as supports and hung her head to let out a tired sigh.

"Major…what happened to you…?"

Shina, after dispelling her Gunslinger Drive, got down behind Noel and laid a hand on her shoulder. The girl glanced back and upon seeing her smile slowly rose to her feet and remarking "Shina…I-I don't know what to say. I'm…sorry you had to be dragged into this."

Shina bent and crossed her arms behind her head and stretched back a little, remarking pleasantly "Aw forget about it, this was bound to happen anyways…" Noel's face turned to exasperation before she murmured "Shina, who…who are you?"

With a cutesy grin, Shina was short and sweet with her response "Just a friend whose got your back Noel." She then pulled her hands away from the back of her head and remarked "Right now, you should be more worried about getting Jin back home, right?"

"O-Oh, right…I'll wait for Captain Hazama to come back first."

Shina nodded her head and replied perkily "O-K! Then if you don't mind me, I'm going to try looking around for any personnel." As she turned around, Noel called out to her "W-W-Wait! Captain Hazama gave a direct order not to let you out of my sight!"

Shina glanced over her shoulder and commented "Don't you trust me Noel?" Noel stared at her and blinked a couple times, remarking in a soft, certain manner "I-I do…But please, be careful…" Shina smiled, but as she turned around it drooped into an uncertain frown as she slowly made her way for the stairs going downward. As she started to head down the stairs, she took in a deep breath and tried to relax herself for what was to come, all the while still wondering what had happened to Alex…

 _Next Time: Recursion of Failure_


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Awakening the Chaos III: Controlled Chaos**

Shina slowly made her way down the staircase into the deeper reaches of the NOL HQ. Her hand tightly grasped the cold, stone railing and her heart beat slow and hard against her chest. Her legs felt so heavy that every step down was a great feat on it's own. At the end of the first flight of stairs, she slowly turned her head to peer over the fencing into the deep, dark chasm.

Down there lied the cold and cruel Nu, who was just waiting to be born into the world yet again in order to become the Black Beast with Ragna. Three times now her and Alex had failed to stop the monster from coming into existence, and with his failure in mind in particular Shina was having doubts that she would be able to stop the Murakumo Unit even at her best.

" _I-I don't know if I can do this…My power just isn't comparable to Alex's…not at all! …E-Even if I used the Valkyrie Drive…"_

She found her bracelet subconsciously being raised before her face as she rounded the corner to descend further into the building. With a soft pause while having one foot on a step in front of her, Shina's lips shrunk into a timid pucker and she pulled her head back, gulping down a wad of saliva. All the while, Noel's presence in the building weighed heavily on her mind as well.

" _B-But if I don't deal with Nu, then Noel will probably wander down here and…"_

The visage of her innocent smile and petite demeanor was ripped asunder by the nightmarish emergence of Nu in her mind. Shina squeezed her eyelids shut and let out a soft but frightened "N-No…!" That was all just a grave but necessary reminder to her of what she needed to do.

" _I…I have to try again…It may hurt, my body may bleed…"_ With her pupils shrinking and her skin summoning forth a paler shade, Shina looked up and continued her thought direly _"I-I might even die again…"_ She let out another gulp and then finished _"But…so long as I can restart from the beginning, then I can just…."_

At the bottom of the second set of stairs, Shina's heart froze for a second, gripped in a fearsome tension. She stumbled and ended up throwing herself against the nearby wall, her shoulder taking the brunt of the hard stone. The thought of repeating the same day over and over again started to become a cruel but inevitable sounding reality. Taking in slow but heavy breaths as her body started to be dripped in a cold sweat, Shina murmured "T-This is so screwed up…What…what if we can never escape this cycle…?"

She turned her back to the wall and leaned her head up against it. Her chest felt tight as visions of repeating the same loop over and over cycled through her mind. All those times, either Noel suffered or died, or perhaps Litchi failed to save Arakune. Maybe she'd be devoured by the awakened Black Beast, forced to submit to everlasting darkness before her mind caved in. Or, what felt like the worst sensation of all, having to discover Alex's corpse time after time again…

With a few short pants in rapid succession, Shina gasped while scraping her fingernails against the stone behind her "I-I can't do this…! How could ANYONE do this?!" As her mind was thrown into a chaotic state, somehow, the image of her sister smiling briefly flashed before her eyes. Then, the chaos briefly took pause as Shina glared towards the ceiling with her mouth held agape while she breathed slowly.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on that nostalgic vision, refusing to let it go no matter how much the grimmer thoughts tried to strike her down into despair again. Her body started to feel a little more relaxed, and a smile crossed her face as she murmured "Heh, I don't think I would ever have made it this far without you sis…"

Reminded of her reasons for fighting yet again, Shina let out a gentle breath and then pulled herself away from the wall, looking towards the next staircase and remarking "Of course, I wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for you in the first place…Guess that's just a testament to how much I love you and mom." With a firm nod of her head, Shina knew that there was always a chance those vile thoughts would resurface, but for now she'd try her best to ignore them and strive forth to try and stop Nu.

So she continued to make her way down the staircase towards the lift that led to the Cauldron. The atmosphere down there was just as oppressive as before, and Shina focused on the Cauldron itself even as she stepped onto the lift and adjusted her body to line up with her line of sight. Her heart fluttered as she reached the very bottom and started to approach the edge of the chasm that housed the unholy creation.

With her toes just tipping over the edge, Shina peered down into the Cauldron and found herself exclaiming "Hey! Come on out Murakumo! I'm here to defeat you!" A futile proclamation to be sure, but it did help to ease some of the tension on her mind.

However, then the Cauldron started to stir. The wings holding the boiling mass of energy back started to part, and Shina pulled back as the strange structure pushed itself through the energy and rose high into the air. Shina walked slowly until she was in the very center of the room, then she raised her right hand up and drew her rapier as the structure locked into place and released a slow, eerie hiss.

Shina's body went stiff as the "lock" on the center opened up and the figure of the Murakumo started to float out of it. The chimes on it's cloak rang a foreboding jingle as it descended to the edge of the floor. Nu opened her eye nice and slow to welcome the sight of the world that she might soon come to destroy. Her gaze met with Shina's own and her voice came out cold and robotically "Loading…loading…loading…"

"…Target detected…Identified as an anomaly in the time-space continuum…Deploying Nox Nyctores…Lux Sanctus: Murakumo…"

Nu's speed at analyzing the threat before her surprised Shina, who widened her eyes for a moment and let out a "Huh?" as that giant sword dropped down behind Nu, crashing and create a cloud of dust that obscured her transformation along with the black aura that surrounded her body. As the dust settled, Nu had gained her gruesome blood red and black outfit thanks to the power of the artifact wedged inside of her body and set her sights towards Shina.

" _Here she comes…!"_ Shina dispelled her rapier and started to swing her hand towards the Valkyrie Drive on her bracelet, but then she suddenly felt a familiar presence that wasn't there before along with hearing the click of a gun trigger and with a sharp turn around she had just a second to throw herself back before she was struck by an energy bullet.

Time seemed to slow for Shina as she looked at the bullet passing through where she was before and then turned to the right, finding herself at a complete loss for words as Noel was standing before the lift with Bolverk raised. But now, her pupils had vanished, and she appeared to be a trance-like state of mind.

As Shina landed hard on her rear, the bullet Noel fired grazed the side of Nu's eye patch and chipped a part of it off as she jolted her head to the left to try and dodge it. Noel then lowered Bolverk a little and remarked in a tone exactly the same as Nu's "Target identified as Boundary Interface Prime Field Device #13...Target is equipped with Lux Sanctus: Murakumo and a foreign power source…Releasing limiters to Arcus Diabolus: Bolverk…Priorities changed…Eliminate rogue Prime Field Device and if necessary, proceed to complete it's primary objective…"

Nu in turn looked towards Noel and commented "Boundary Interface Prime Field Device #12...identified…Inquiry allowed…Why have you chosen to disobey your programming…?" Noel responded in a nanosecond while slowly moving towards the Murakumo unit "Response allowed…You have interfaced with a foreign power and your functions have been compromised…Elimination is required to reset the smelting process…"

Shina could only look on, staring back and forth at the two as she found herself in a scene she never wanted to happen. _"No…I didn't want this to happen to Noel! H-How did she even get down here without me noticing?!"_ Shaking her head, Shina pushed herself to her feet and realized _"Worry about that later! You have to snap her out of this!"_

She swiftly exclaimed once erect "Noel! This isn't like you, cut it out!" In response, Noel raised her other Bolverk towards Shina and fired a stronger bullet, which with a gasp the girl had to draw her rapier out to cut down. Noel then swerved her head like a doll would and murmured "Secondary objective confirmed…Eliminate temporal anomaly known as Shina Aurora…"

"N-Noel…!" Shina whispered in shock before being forced to slice down another bullet. In the meantime, Nu leaned forward a little and a small grin crossed her face, which Shina noticed and was a little unnerved by for the second she caught a glimpse of it. Nu then remarked more stoically "Prime Field Device #12...You are incomplete…I order you to self-destruct…"

Noel faced Nu and replied "Negative…Orders have been superseded by logic functionality…Prime Field Device #13...You are to be eliminated at once…" Nu swung her floating swords towards Noel and remarked "Target has been identified as defective…Eliminating with extreme prejudice…"

Then she fired all her swords off at Noel, who whipped both her Bolverks forward and repelled the swords with bullets fired at blinding speeds. Nu got in front of Noel and swung her right bladed arm up, only for the girl to guard with a crossing of her guns. Nu spun around after her swing and tried to stab the exposed gut underneath the guns, but Noel simply flipped right over her.

Nu stood upright and turned around, commanding her blades to intercept Noel mid-air. The girl twirled around and fired a series of blasts that knocked the blades to the ground, allowing her to land with little trouble.

As this battle began, Shina stayed a safe distance away and tried to think of what to do. _"O-Oh god…Noel's given into her originally programming as a Murakumo Unit…A-And she only can see me as an enemy."_ Biting her lower lip, she swung her head around to keep track of the two's battle, as Noel perfectly kept Nu's attacks at bay while leaping around the room with great agility.

The very moment Noel's line of sight noticed Shina's presence, the girl paused and pointed Bolverk to take a shot at her, then swung her arm down in a millisecond to avoid Nu's attempt to stab it with one of her floating swords. Shina sliced the shot down again and with a widening of her eyes realized how much tougher this made an already tough battle.

" _Noel's not being possessed by that aura…I-If I use the Valkyrie Drive now I might end up cutting her down while trying to get to Nu."_ With a drawn out, frustrated growl, Shina slammed hesitantly slammed the Gunslinger Drive and tried to end her thoughts on a brighter note _"But…If I can just stay out of Noel's sight, I can help her take down Nu, and that should free her from this trance!"_

She immediately fired towards Nu, who was hunched over and trying to bombard a mid-air Noel with all her flying swords. The small bullets only managed to draw the Murakumo's attention instead of doing any lasting damage. Nu turned on a dime then bent down, swinging her left arm at the ground to send an energy buzz saw grinding across the ground towards Shina.

It moved at such a pace that Shina had a couple seconds to fling herself over it while switching to SMGs. She tried to assault Nu with a rapid-fire barrage, but the Murakumo swung three of her swords out and spun them rapidly like a fan to deflect them across the room. Even knowing how dangerous it could be, Shina landed in front of Nu and jammed one of her SMGs between the spinning blades while hardening the aura. The blades all slammed against the side of the gun and allowed Shina a perfectly opening to riddle the Murakumo's face with bullets.

Nu was pushed back, a few holes burning into her skin as she swung her right arm out and tried to call forth a couple blades from a rift. During this, however, Noel got in behind Nu and jammed both Bolverks into her back, pulling hard on the triggers to blow a hole through her body with a large shotgun blast of energy. Shina was struck not just by the tip of the energy, but also some of the blood that splashed out from Nu's wound.

" _She was trying to hit me too…!"_ Shina grimaced at the ruthlessness Noel was displaying now in battle, but she would quickly have to fend the girl off as Nu dropped to her knees and made Noel's line of sight lock onto her. Noel coldly remarked "Critical damage dealt with Prime Field Device #13...Switching targets to temporal anomaly Shina Aurora…"

She then leaped over Nu's body and swung her right leg out a couple times, using all her strength for the purpose of caving Shina's head in. With a face frozen in concern for her friend, Shina ducked the first attack and yelled out "Noel!" then dodged the second one and continued "Stop!" finally culminating in a cry of "This isn't you!" as the girl landed on the ground with her leg stretched back and Bolverks barrels planted on the ground.

Noel stared up at Shina and then spun her guns around, building up energy in them as she planted them against Shina's gut and was prepared to fire. "Perish…" She coldly whispered as the triggers clicked. Shina summoned aura to block the point-blank blast, but not only did her protection break instantly but a few shards of energy burned itself into her stomach muscles.

But a physical wound was nothing compared to the mental anguish of having that wound inflicted by a friend. Shina grit her teeth and exclaimed "I-I'm not going to give up on you…!" before forcing her right knee up and ramming it into Noel's chin, temporarily breaking the girl's Terminator-like focus. As Noel was knocked a couple inches off the ground, Shina created two crossbows and stabbed the tips of the arrows into the cloth at the sides of Noel's uniform.

"So please…don't resist!" She yelled before pulling the triggers and sending Noel flying into the wall above the right hallway, where the arrows made sure to pin her in place, especially as Shina carefully aimed a few more into the other parts of her uniform without managing to draw even a drop of blood from her skin.

Right away Noel tried to wrench herself free from the wall. Her face didn't even budge past the creepy, stoic expression she had, making her continue to look more like a doll than the lively person Shina had come to know. Shina grit her teeth while swinging her weapons beside her face then looked down at Nu, who had already reconstructed the damage done to her and lunged herself right at Shina's body.

With her bladed arm going straight for Shina's gut, the girl had but a second to spin away from the attack and then position her weapons at Nu's face. The Murakumo's eyes slid to the right side of the visor and she quickly zipped left then right to dodge the arrows, swinging her right arm up at the end of it to call forth a pair of curved energy blades directly below Shina. With her attacks going at speeds that Shina could barely keep up with, she did not have the time to call forth her aura and had part of her stomach cut into as she leaped back.

Fighting through the sharp pain burning itself into her body, Shina created a gatling gun from her two weapons and rammed it into Nu's body, ripping through her guts with the ensuing onslaught of aura bullets while letting out a prolonged yell of "HYAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Nu is thrown against the wall and her body flails about from the continuous assault as she coldly remarks "Focusing defenses on lower frame…Realigning repairs to damages in the same area…" With that, her body began to heal up there faster than Shina's assault could harm it, and the Murakumo forced herself to the ground and charged straight underneath the bullets to ram her left arm right into the front of Shina's weapon. With a heavy slice downward, Nu ripped through the gatling gun like it was paper and then with a brief lunge forward swung her other arm up to send a series of blades up from underneath Shina.

The girl was stunned for a moment by the destruction of her weapon but managed to leap to the right with only the bottom of her left hip taking a cut from the blades. She then started gliding back only for a stray bullet to graze her left shoulder and force her to stop.

"G-Gaaaah!" Shina exclaimed as she quickly laid a hand to cover the open, bleeding gash with aura, looking ahead to find that Noel had freed herself from the wall with parts of her uniform at the hips and sleeves torn off.

Noel raised her other Bolverk at Nu and fired at both her opponents with a volley of shots. Nu blocked them all with her floating blades while Shina sprinted to the right and rolled at the ground to lose Noel's line of sight. The girl tucked herself in near the cage and tended to the searing pain on her left arm by using the aura to heal it up. She couldn't replace the lost skin or flesh, but as long as the bleeding stopped that was good enough for her.

The battle continued to rage on behind her cover, with Noel and Nu tangling close together and trying their hardest to destroy each other at close range. Noel kept swinging away from the Murakumo's blades while taking shots at the most important parts of her body like the arms and head. Nu jerked her arms away with such force as to break the bones if that's what it would take to avoid the shots, and a couple times managed to plunged her flying blades into Noel's own limbs.

Even with blood dripping from her skin, Noel forced her arm through the digging in blades and shot Nu point blank in the visor, shattering it right off and revealing the girl's pale white gaze. Nu cracked a grin and then lunged forward with her arms repaired, grabbing Noel by the neck and hoisting her up high. Noel in turn swung Bolverk into Nu's shoulders and pulled hard, releasing shotgun blasts with enough firepower to blast the arms free from their sockets.

Nu zipped back from her falling arms as Noel dropped and tried to kick her in the chest, and blood began to spray from the Murakumo's sockets. Noel raised her guns up and targeted a small but concentrated Optic Barrel on Nu's head. As Shina observed this, she clenched her teeth and thought _"No! I can't let Noel do that…If she sees she killed someone, then…!"_

Prematurely leaving her wound be, Shina raced to stand up and swing her arms out, summoning her pistols and firing upon Noel's right hand before the trigger could be pulled. With Noel's fingers flinching, she slowly turned her head towards Shina and raised her other gun up to fire. Shina swerved her head to the left and the shot brushed against the side of her scouter and knocked it clean off.

"Grrrhhh…!" Shina's frustration boiled over in her growl and she ran right at Noel, dispelling her guns and summoning walls of aura to precisely block every shot the girl fired her way. With her fist pulled back, Shina widened her eyes with a couple teardrops coming through and thought _"I'm doing this for your own good Noel!"_ Midway through the swing though, Shina gasped upon sensing a disturbance and pulled her fist back just in time to avoid having it cut clean off by one of Nu's energy blades, which instead clipped a few hairs off her swaying hair as she jumped back.

Looking to the right, Shina watched as new bones grew out of Nu's sockets, followed by layers of flesh spreading out like an unfurled carpet and splashing viscera and blood across the floor. Then skin peeled out atop of that, renewing the doll's pale body to it's complete state. Shina's face in turn paled and she could feel chunks of acid and food fighting to free themselves from her esophagus.

Words were lost from her mind while the Murakumo leaned forward and cracked a wide, fanged grin that was again uncharacteristic of such a normally cold doll, especially since Ragna was not around. What snapped Shina back to reality was when a shot grazed across her back courtesy of Noel, sending a burning sensation shooting up her spine.

Before Noel got another shot off, Nu slammed her hand on the ground and summoned a pair of rifts to unleash a bombardment of blades towards the two. Noel swung her Bolverks before her body and created a small barrier around herself to block the attacks, while Shina ran to the right and tried to slip in a couple shots towards Nu. But without even looking towards the girl the Murakumo deflects those bullets by swinging her levitating blades around.

It started becoming clear at that point that Nu cared more about ripping Noel apart then she did about Shina's presence. In fact, the doll seemed to be easily deflecting all of her attacks as though she had experienced them before. _"But…that can't be right. This is a whole new loop…"_ Shina thought, but as she back up and swung her guns around to deflect Nu's blades she was thinking to what Noel was saying before they got here.

" _Well…I don't know why, but I DO feel pretty comfortable around you, Shina."_

Something that she had once attributed to Noel having an ease of mind around someone of her type was now being put in a much more troublesome light in Shina's mind now that she had been keeping track of Nu's behavior during this battle. Noel seeming to recognize her, Nu booting up and acknowledging her and Noel's odd presence here all too quickly, none of it was normal. And that was when Shina let out a shocked gasp and came to a dreadful conclusion.

Everything seemed to freeze around her as she thought back to the very beginning of her time in this world. Then she thought _"What if…W-What if what Alex did has done more than allow us to be apart of the time loops? What if…by some pure accident…he's caused everyone we come in contact with to retain some of their memories and knowledge of previous time loops…"_

With her mind and heart racing, Shina decided to test her theory out by slowly going for the Valkyrie Drive. The moment she saw a rift open up before her wrist, she pulled her arms apart and ran to the left before the blade cut her wrist off. A gasp shot forth from her mouth and the moment both her feet were on the ground she froze up and looked over at Nu. While the doll stood sideways and flung some more energy blades at Noel from both directions, she took a moment to glance at Shina and crack another grin.

It was all the confirmation Shina needed that her suspicions were right on the nose. Things were being remembered between loops, and that meant Nu now knew how to deal with the likes of her Gunslinger Drive. The Murakumo had no reason to see her as a threat in her current state, and if Nu had even the slightest awareness of this phenomenon then things were not going to get any better.

She was an emotionally stunted robot to be sure, but she also had the ability to process everything that was going on and react appropriately. Combine that with knowledge of fights and people she's encountered in previous loops, along with her variety of projectiles, and it was entirely possible that Nu could eventually become unstoppable. An unstoppable, murderous doll…that just so happened to be holding the one thing Shina needed to save her people.

A cold fear wreathed over Shina's shoulders and weighed her down. Her body felt stiff and the air around her dry and lifeless. She gasped and heaved as she came to a horrifying conclusion. She can't use the Valkyrie Drive without possibly harming Noel, and even if she was cautious that would give Nu the chance to analyze her abilities for another time loop should she fail. Then she would repeat the loop over and over again, throwing herself at a wall that she could never surmount. And every failure would be just another chance for Noel to suffer or die, as she too would remember bits and pieces of the other loops.

For all his selfless intentions, Alex may have ultimately screwed not just the two of them over, but also doomed the rest of the world into a truly infinitely repeating cycle. With the way the loops worked as well, neither Alex or Shina would age a day, which means there was truly no escape from this cycle unless Alex chose to break it or Nu was permanently put down. And Alex was too strong-willed to give up. He had been bred to fight to the very end. Shina, on the other hand…was simply not able to bear that weight forever.

"W-W-W…WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

A violent scream ripped forth from her throat and shook the room, and Nu and Noel stopped their battle to look at her with surprise. Nu then suddenly had a shotgun jammed deep into her right cheek by Shina, whose face was contorted into one of sheer madness as she pulled the trigger and blew off the entire side of Nu's face. The flesh splattered across the room, some of it landing on Shina's body.

But she didn't care.

As the Murakumo was left staggering back, Shina immediately pulled out a sniper rifle and clicked the trigger five times while lifting it up, piercing through Nu's head, heart, lungs and neck in rapid succession. Nu's body began regenerating the damage, but with a tearful scream Shina raised both her arms up and poured a dangerously high amount of aura into a pair of rocket launchers she could barely lift with each arm.

She blasted Nu with all she could, blowing them back with every explosive, enraged rocket. The Murakumo's body was torn apart all around, exposing her guts and the artifact piece buried somewhere between the gut and chest.

"Target is exhibiting dangerous energy spikes…Switching all functions to de-"

Nu's stoic self-talk was interrupted by Shina launching a grenade right into the Murakumo's mouth, which she ended up making explode with her talkative bite. As the doll's head blew right off, Shina didn't even give them a chance to limp forward as she pulled out her gatling gun and assaulted their broken body with a fiercer barrage of bullets than before, continuing a prolonged scream all the while. Nu was forced into the back of the right hall, her regenerating flesh and blood flying every which way with every bullet that slammed into her lithe frame.

The back of the hall was filled with dark red in a matter of seconds, and Shina continued to walk forward with no signs of slowing down on her assault. With a deep and violent tone that was unbecoming of her, she yelled out "Just die damn you…Die die die die DIE!" while tears flung forth from her eyes.

She was so determined to end the Murakumo's life that she failed to notice when her gatling gun simply stopped firing for a good few seconds. She had her fingers hard on the trigger and then clicked it a few times, but not a single bullet came out. So consumed in rage, Shina had wasted all of her aura for an ultimately futile onslaught, as the moment the doll dropped to the ground her steaming, bloodied body was already reforming at a rapid pace.

Shina widened her eyes and tugged on her weapon as hard as she could, but the very moment she was ready to speak her voice was drowned by a point-blank, deafening blast. Her eyes widened and her body suddenly felt much lighter than it did before. The gatling gun shattered and her body started to fall forward. With what strength she could feel in her body, Shina looked down and saw a hole straight had been blown straight through the center of her body.

It didn't take two guesses to realize who was responsible, but such a realization was honestly the most painful thing about this moment. Shina collapsed to the ground with her face laying sideways on the ground as her life flooded away like the blood contained within her body. Noel stood behind her with Bolverk's barrel smoking, and she remarked coldly "Secondary objective achieved…Proceeding to eliminate-"

And then Nu brought her right hand down, summoning forth a giant energy blade that crushed and split Noel's body down to a fine paste. Parts of her blood, viscera and organs splattered out across Shina's twitching body, which could barely feel a thing anymore. No warmth, no cold, not even physical pain could be felt. The only sensation that weighed on Shina's mind was an overwhelming despair.

Nu slowly walked up to Shina, who spent the last moments of her life this loop muttering forth with a blank stare in her eyes "A-Alex…P-Please…Where are you…S-Save me…S-Save me…I-I-I…I-I-I'm scared…"

Nu kneeled down and tightly grabbed the bottom of Shina's chin, crunching her jaw bones down as the doll forced the girl to look into her ghastly white eyes one last time. Then, Nu giggled in delight and remarked in a chilling, sadistic voice "Hehehe…He'll never save you. You're both doomed to die… _ **forever**_ …!"

Waiting until the pale fear came forth in Shina's eyes, Nu hastened her demise by ripping her jaw clean from the rest of her body and throwing herself upright, engaging in a merry, childish laughter. All the while, Rachel stood on the alcoves, giving this scene a dismissive twirl away as she laid a hand on the side of her head and left through a windy portal, a sigh brushing against her lips…

 _Next Time: Relentless Aggression_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: The Intrigues of Sector Seven**

It was the dawn of a new time loop. Just like every other time, things were nice and sunny, and nature was in harmony within the forests around Kagutsuchi. The thin concentrations of seithr were barely noticeable to the creatures of the wild. However, what would soon take their notice was a burst of raw air within the center of the forest that sent a mass quantity of leaves fluttering into the high sky.

The air was followed by a thunderous stomp that cracked the ground and sent dirt flying across the surface of the forest. The creatures hopped and flapped their wings away from this scene of pure rage unfolding, even though the being in question was not a horrible monster, but rather the young Alex Whiter.

At the moment, Alex had his hands clenched tightly into fists beside his chest, his muscles so tense that not even the best massager would ever relaxed him. He grinded his teeth together and reared his head back to look towards the canopy, his face red as a tomato. With a growl that shook his esophagus, Alex's first words this timeline were a sharp, violently "Son of a BITCH!"

He swung his right fist out in an arc and smashed through the nearby tree trunk with the force of a wrecking ball. The bark of the tree cracked and then gave way, collapsing and weakening another tree's structure and starting an almost domino chain reaction down the forest for a few more trees. Alex turned away from the scene of destruction and looked towards Kagutsuchi, his eyes hot with an inferno of rage.

"First those goddamn posters, then those goddamn ninjas, then GODDAMN BANG FUCKING SHISHIGAMI KILLED ME! Me, Alex Whiter, killed by HIM of all people?! I don't care how much power that aura gave him, I never, EVER should have lost to the weakest person in the series' canon!" Alex roared, his pride damaged greater than it had been so far on this world.

With an aura of fire raging and twisting around his body, Alex growled like some rabid beast and muttered under his heated breath "The moment I find Terumi…I'm going to cut that snake's head off! And, and then…!" He pounded his fist into his open palm and a massive surge of power and heat ripped through the forest. The boy panted a little bit, starting off fervent and going a little slower as he tried to regain focus.

His heart still raced from the rage he felt burrowed in his heart, but he laid his arms against his chest and murmured "Calm down Alex, there'll be time to deal with that snake later. I need to go after that damn doll." Folding his right arm out before his chest, Alex flexed his fingers a few times and felt pretty refreshed. With a wide smile, he gave a terse chuckle.

Despite everything, he had managed to keep enough energy in reserve to utilize his Phoenix Form when he needed to. As his goal was defeating Nu, the events of the last loop were ultimately to his advantage. But despite this, he couldn't shake off this burning, piercing wound to his pride that Bang had delivered unto him.

He clenched the hand into a tight fist, the leather of his glove squeaking like it was brand new. He then looked towards Kagutsuchi and with a cocky lowering of his brows he remarked "No more bullshit. No more distractions. I'm going to land in the city, walk all the way to the top, bust that damn door down, then burn that stupid goddamn Murakumo to a fine crisp!"

With a fervent glare, Alex opened his hand and set it on fire, casting a grim shadow across his face while he murmured "Prepare yourself Nu…This New Year's going to be a blast!" He then kicked off the ground and sped right out of the forest towards Kagutsuchi. He landed in the usual spot and walked into the crowd of people, pushing his arms left and right to move people out of the way even as they broke into a string of upset complaints.

Alex's answer to all that was to turn around to the angry crowd as he left and yelled "Hey, bite me!" before sticking out his tongue and flipping them the middle finger. The crowd quickly became a conjoined mob that ran straight at the boy, who cracked a wide grin and spun around, flipping a pair of fingers up behind himself to create a wall of stone to stifle their rampage. The people stumbled and tripped over each other against the wall, and their yells remained muffled behind it while Alex laid his hands behind his head and hummed merrily as he walked off.

"I should've been doing this two time loops ago…"

Luckily, since time shenanigans allowed him to keep that map from last time, Alex was able to casually stroll through the city to make his way back to Kagutsuchi HQ. He had an uncaring air around him as he kept a move on without pause. Nothing was going to get in his way now.

" _No stupid posters, no stupid ninja, and ESPECIALLY no stupid 'Grim Reaper'. This time, THIS TIME…I'll do it…"_

"Myyyyyyyy waaaaaaaaay!" Alex broke into a bit of a sing-song tone as he began to cross the bridge where he once fought Ragna. He cracked a smile and murmured "Well, don't know where that came from, but it felt pretty good."

He then closed his eyes and entered a state of bliss for a little bit, until he heard the heavy clanging of metallic footsteps walking past him to the left. He slowly creaked his eyelids open and glanced in that direction, a red-skinned giant walking past him. With his face contorting into a grimace, Alex swiftly turned away and kicked up the pace of his walk.

" _Nope nope nope! Not going to get involved in their business!"_

The giant's movements suddenly stopped and Alex could faintly hear a shrill and somewhat grumpy voice remarking to them _"Hey! There he is! Don't let him get away!"_ Alex widened his eyes and scoffed, remarking in a quiet and puzzled manner "What the hell…? Now I'm being targeted by her?! Screw that…!"

Not in the mood to fight, Alex swung his arms out and broke into a run to try and make it into the tunnel at the end of the bridge. But when a proclamation of "SPARK BOLT!" rang through his ears, he quickly came to the realization that the world was never going to be in the mood to listen to his desires. With a frustrated scowl he spun around and drew his sword in a downward slash to cut through the ball of green electricity that flew his way.

Holding the hand his sword was held in a slant across his chest, Alex turned his head a bit to the left and widened his eyes into a bitter glare as the red giant from before swung his open right palm out and started to draw the boy in. Alex widened his eyes and quickly remembered that the giant had the ability to magnetize whatever the electricity from his body touched.

Glancing down and seeing some of the electricity surrounding his arm, Alex cracked a grin and then laid his other hand atop his elbow, using his powers to shatter the electricity. He then swung his right arm out and sent forth a wave of fire towards the giant. Their response was to swing their right gauntlet towards the path the fire took and slice it away with an arc of electricity.

Alex then held his sword towards the giant and approached them slowly, trying his hardest to contain his anger as he proclaimed "Alright! What's the big idea here?!" The giant, who he knew to be Iron Tager, kept his arms at a standstill beside his hips and responded in a deep but intellectual voice "You're the wanted criminal Alex Whiter, correct?"

The boy shifted his eyes downward to the left and murmured under his breath "Oh my god this shit again…" before remarking bluntly "And what if I am? What does that matter to Sector Seven?"

"That's none of your concern. I have come to apprehend you." The man replied in a respectfully straightforward manner, but Alex was having none of that shit as he quickly told him while his eyes flared up in anger "Like hell it isn't! You think you can fool me with that…? I already can tell that it it **Kokonoe** who's making you do this!"

"Hmph, whatever are you talk-"

" _You can forget about acting dumb Tager. It's like I suspected, he knows way more about the two of us than he has any right to."_ The same grumpy voice from before came out of Tager's body, directing itself right into Alex's eardrums and making him crack a dull scoff.

Tager's jaw dropped a little bit and he stammered in surprise "K-Kokonoe, what are you-" _"Yeah, so I'm the one who ordered your capture. What's it to you?"_ Kokonoe hijacked the conversation from her partner without restraint, giving Alex's rage the brush-off uncaringly.

He, however, was not in the mood to deal with this shit and bluntly got to the point "Even you can't possibly be THIS stupid Kokonoe. Just who the hell do you think set up those wanted posters?"

" _Yuuki Terumi, no shit."_ Her tone was crass and to the point, as expected of one of her arrogant nature, but she quickly addressed the boy's other remark with short-tempered disdain _"And just where the hell do you get off calling me stupid when YOU'VE been gallivanting around the city drawing attention to yourself?! Frankly I'm lucky some other dumbass didn't get to you first!"_

Alex gripped his hand around the sword tightly and lashed out like a grade-schooler "Shut up! You're the one who's stupid, stupid!" Tager raised his brows and questioned rather quietly "Kokonoe, are you SURE this is the person we're looking for?"

" _Haaaa…Yes Tager."_ The woman could be heard deflating her rage in a frazzled groan for a moment before taking upon a cold but serious attitude once more _"He may look and act like a brat, but the kid's got a lot of power inside of him. Just remember the mission."_

"…Roger." Tager stretched his hands out a little and the plates on his gauntlets extended out, with him dictating in a composed and dutiful tone "Incapacitate the criminal Alex Whiter and have him delivered to Sector Seven."

Alex widened his eyes and proclaimed hastily "Whoa whoa whoa, hang on! You know what kind of power I have?!"

" _That's none of your business."_ Kokonoe bluntly tried to end the subject, but Alex swung his sword out beside himself and exclaimed "You may not understand people that well Kokonoe, but even you must be able to tell that I'm not someone who's going to just sit down and shut up like some kid in a time out!"

" _Yeah, you've made that pretty damn obvious. So what? You think I'm just going to give into your demands just because you've barked at me like some rapid dog?"_

"Heh, well I don't know, cats ARE supposed to be afraid of dogs." Alex spouted with a mischievous smile, and Kokonoe immediately had a reply whipped up in her mind _"Well this cat's got more of a bite than you ever will, you little shit."_

"And that's why your little pet project's out here fighting me instead of you. Isn't that right, Tager?" Alex responded with a rather cocky glare towards the giant.

"Uhhh…" The man simply raised his brows as he found himself verbally sandwiched between two bickering children. Kokonoe immediately spoke up for him in a more bitter tone than before _"Like you're worth more effort than the dry skin under my feet!"_

"And yet here you are trying to win this back-and-forth like you have something to prove! You could've just answered me in the time it's taking you to bitch this much!"

" _Why don't you come over here and say that to my face, dumbass?! If you do I'll just shove my lollipop right up your goddamn as-"_

"K-Kokonoe!" Tager spurted out suddenly in disbelief, breaking the intense atmosphere that was flaring up between the two. He then calmly remarked while sounding a little flustered "I get that you are frustrated, but please…Calm down! …Besides, I'm starting to feel like walkie-talkie…"

" _Tsk…Butt out Tager."_ Though crass in tone, Kokonoe's voice did sound a little softer than it did below, gentling the blow. Alex then grit his teeth and his body started to flare up, with him remarking in a quiet but gravely tone "Look, I've simply had enough shit on my plate as is. It was bad enough I didn't get any answers from Hakumen about the history of my powers on this world, but-"

" _Wait a second, you've seen Hakumen?! …No, hold on, that can't be right."_ Kokonoe's sudden doubt in herself was a surprise to Tager, who inquired quietly "Is something the matter Kokonoe?"

The woman then said while trying to maintain an air of confidence _"Alright kid, tell you what. You tell me where Hakumen is going to show up in Kagutsuchi, and I'll answer one question."_ Alex raised his brows and pondered _"What the hell's this about? Does she know what's going on with the time loops…? I-I honestly can't remember…"_

With a doubting tilt of the head and a quiet grumble, Alex closed his eyes and let loose a sigh before remarking "Hakumen should be going straight for the Cauldron in the NOL's HQ. He's after Ragna the Bloodedge." Kokonoe gave an unsurprised reply of _"The Grim Reaper eh? Should've figured…"_

"Now, you mind explaining what the hell you know about me?" Alex inquired with a slightly roughened and impatient tone. Kokonoe quickly and honestly replied _"I know that you're the new Elemental Overlord, and that you're from another world. Also, I don't know how you managed it, but you and one other person can go through these time loops with your memories intact."_

"… _So she does know about the time loops. Really shouldn't have been surprised…For all that hot air, Kokonoe's genius is unmatched in this world. In fact, she kinda reminds me of Alpha…"_ Shaking his head a bit, Alex ended his thought with honesty _"But the comparisons can only go so far…"_

Then part of what Kokonoe said finally registered in his mind, and he swung his body around and exclaimed "Wait a second, you know about Shina too?!" The woman quickly and bluntly replied _"You got your one question kid, and I'm not handing out freebies here."_

Alex scowled and let out a "Tsk" before dispelling his sword and folding his arms against his chest. "Then I'm going to give you one warning. And don't worry, this one's on the house…" He widened his eyes and looked straight up at Tager, the bridge beginning to tremble as Alex exerted his power onto it.

"I, quite frankly, have much bigger fish to fry than the likes of you and your little toy. Right now, a Murakumo unit is being smelted in the depths of Kagutsuchi HQ, and it's in the possession of a dangerous artifact that makes it stronger than ever before. I and only I can destroy that damn doll now." Alex swung his arms out, one across his chest and another beside his head, the fire around his body raging even more as the tremors just got worse.

"So I'm giving you…just ONE warning Kokonoe. Either back off now, or your Iron Tager is going to become Iron Scrap!"

Tager grit his teeth and yelled in concern "Kokonoe, his power is off the charts! You cannot possibly expect me to fight him!" Kokonoe responded dryly at first _"Get a hold of yourself Tager. This fight is ours"_ before going into a more forceful tone _"I'm releasing all your restraints, so throw everything you got at him! I don't care if you have to break this goddamn bridge to capture him!"_

Steam shot out from all around Tager's gauntlets, with electricity crackling along his body like he had become a human conductor. Alex grinned and his eyes flared completely upon, showing a delectable ecstasy as he swung his arms out beside his body and slowly rose off the ground, levitating above the ogre's height and making him feel absolutely tiny in comparison.

"Fine by me…I DON'T CARE EITHER!" Alex exclaimed before lashing out his flames on both sides of his body, creating a towering wall of an inferno behind him that thankfully didn't sweep up any of the observing citizens. Tager's body began to sweat and he held his arms up before his face as some of the flames roared and lashed out at him, all the while he grunted with some anger "Kokonoe…GHH! This is absurd!"

Alex lunged forward and slammed his fists hard into Tager's gauntlets, denting their frame and easily pushing someone of his weight back quite a few feet. Tager swung his arms out and as Alex charged in again he clamped them inward to grab and slam the boy against his chest, attempting to restrain him.

Alex kicked his legs against Tager's rock hard abs and pushed his back towards the man's biceps, quickly starting to push them apart even with the giant using all of his strength to hold him down. All the while, Alex grinned as wide as he could and appeared to be enjoying this way too much. Before his gauntlets gave way, Tager swung his arms out and let the boy catapulting off of his body, where he then landed on the ground after a swift flip back.

Alex swung his right hand against the ground and scraped his fingernails hard enough to create sparks, then once he stopped he glared up at Tager as the man swung his arms out from his chest again to send another ball of sparks towards him. Alex widened his eyes and a shockwave erupted from his body, forcing the ball straight back at it's owner.

As Tager punched the ball to nothing, Alex exclaimed "You think you can best me with those kind of tricks?! The power of science is nothing before MY power!" He then took off like a blur, hopping just right before Tager's body like a predator on the hunt. The giant had but a moment to look surprised before Alex assailed him with a flurry of blows faster than the naked eye could. Each punch carried the weight of a large boulder and the cold metallic feel of steel, and with one violent sling of the fist against the man's chest Alex had managed to knock the towering Tager onto his back and sent him rolling to the other side of the bridge.

The man slammed his hands to the ground and magnetized his palms to stop moving, staying hunched over while Alex flexed his knuckles tightly a few times before his face, the skin just a pale shade of red. Swinging his arm out, he exclaimed with a fervent curiosity "Is that all the Red Devil is capable of?!" Tager bore his fangs and exclaimed "You're out of control!" before rising to his feet.

The boy kept his arm held out while slowly walking towards the giant. With a slightly shift of his head up, Alex sneered and said with a little unhinged glee "Hehe…And what, exactly, is wrong…" His eyes then flared up as he clenched his fist tightly and released flames that rose higher than his head from it, exclaiming in pure excitement "WITH LETTING LOOSE A LITTLE?!"

He then shot himself at Tager like a torpedo, nailing the giant's crossed arms with the force equivalent to ten of them while simultaneously setting off an explosion bigger than the giant's body. Tager was pushed back a couple more feet, letting out a few grunts while the dent Alex had put in the gauntlets glowed bright yellow and red for a few seconds.

As Tager pulled them away from his body, Alex landed and put on a more relaxed smirk. Kokonoe then chimed in _"Tager, was that good enough?"_ Tager cracked a bit of a grin and replied confidently "Yes Kokonoe. Speed and strength perimeters have been established on the target. Maximizing output…Engaging target…NOW!"

Tager swung his arms out like a pair of scissors and his hulk of a frame suddenly shot forth like a bullet train, placing him in front of Alex right as he slammed his fists together and smashed them against the boy's right cheek. Alex's expression became one of his surprise as he stumbled and twirled back a few feet, taking a moment to regain his composure while he laid a hand on his burning cheek and grinned.

"Well well, looks like you had some tricks up your sleeve after all…"

Tager then manages to jump high off the ground in preparation to slam his entire body on top of Alex. The boy slowly stepped back, fearing not the sluggish pace at which the man fell. Tager then swung his arms out from his chest and assaulted Alex with a blinding fast electric ball. The boy didn't get the chance to dispel the magnetism before Tager held his hand out to draw him in. Just mere feet from the ground, Tager spun around a couple times to dizzy the boy before pile-driving straight against the bridge.

"Stay down!" Tager exclaimed with gravely ferocity as the boy was pushed through the floor. The giant managed a perfectly calculated landing on his feet and then pulled his hand up, finding that the boy had vanished. "What?!" He proclaimed before Kokonoe told him _"He's coming in from below, watch out!"_

As the ground began to bulge under Tager's feet, he stamped one of them down with all his might, but only burst open a pocket of air that flew out into his face like a wild cyclone. "Ghhh…!" Tager held himself together by magnetizing his feet to the ground, while behind him Alex emerged and went straight for the small, handle-like object sticking out from his back. Grabbing onto it, Alex pulled him back as he landed on the ground and then swung him around, the skin on his left arm grinding against the floor.

After spinning around a few times like the giant was little more than a hacky-sack, Alex flung him into the air straight towards a stacked set of steel sheets he ripped right off the bridge. As Tager slammed into them Alex rocketed at him for a punch. Instead of taking the blow Tager swung his right fist out and intercepted it, sending a shockwave rippling through the air.

Tager then quickly opened and clamped his hand around Alex's fist, pulling him into his chest and holding him tight before he magnetized his entire body towards the bridge. "Time for you to say good night…MAGNETIC BOMBER!" He proclaimed as his body plummeted from the sky like a bomb. Alex wrestled his hands around the girth of Tager's hip muscles and dug his fingers in tight, using his powers to reverse the polarity of magnetism flowing throughout.

This resulted in Tager being forced to a stop mere inches off the ground, his body bobbing up and down a bit while levitated. Alex then squeezed his hands past Tager's arms and slammed them against his chest, releasing a burst of air to send the giant flying very high into the sky. The boy landed and spun around, swiping a hand atop his forehead as he looked up and saw Tager as but a red speck.

Whistling to himself, Alex wiggled his arms beside his hips then brushed them out, peeling up part of the ground and bending it to create a rectangular pocket. He then clenched his fingers, squeezing differing parts of the pocket down into a crumpled netting, making it look a lot like a soccer goal. He then looked up again and took a couple steps back, setting the tip of his shoes on fire to etch an "X" into the ground as Tager seemed ready to plummet back into battle.

And the Red Devil was coming back in style, as his body was wrapped in a massive shell of electricity that was mostly concentrated on his right palm. The very moment before Tager would land EXACTLY on the "X", Alex hopped back and maintained brief levitation while the giant sent electricity flying across the now entirely evacuated bridge. With his hairs sticking up on end, Alex swung his right leg up high and delivered a sharp axe-kick to the back of Tager's head to knock him to the ground.

The giant ate the floor so hard that he bounced right off, and Alex was right above him to kick his legs repeatedly into his body. Tager spun around at such velocity that all that could be seen was a violently whirling crimson, and his body kept taking damage with each smash against the ground. Alex kept his hands in his pockets during most of the assault, only pulling one out to 'look at a watch' near the end.

He then curled his right leg against his chest and charged it full of fire, swinging it down straight into the man's chest. The fire spun out in the shape of a two-bladed shuriken and dragged Tager right along the ground into he slammed straight into the steel netting, the girth of his arms and neck bending it around his muscles, with Alex snapping his fingers to wrap them around the rest of the way.

He kept the bindings tight as he could, then pulled up some thicker metal from the ground to hold the giant's legs in place. All the while, Alex strolled his way over, swinging his clenched fists out and immediately pushing them inward, forcing Tager's gauntlets to the front of his body.

"I gave you the chance to walk away from this fight…YOU had every opportunity to save yourself from embarrassment, Kokonoe! But you're too thick-headed to realize when you're beat, aren't you?!" Alex stood tall and cockily as he stopped before Tager's fists. He swung his hands up and ripped right into them like they were made of aluminum foil.

"Well maybe THIS…!" Alex started to tug on the gauntlets, causing them to be pulled apart, and in a matter of seconds they were ripped to shreds and their parts flung across the bridge behind him. With a maddened glare the boy then finished "WILL TEACH YOU A LESSON!"

Behind the gauntlets were a set of metallic tips that held the gauntlets in place, all of which were attached to metal plates with a single large hole in their centers. Tager was more machine-than-man at this point, and for a moment Alex felt pity for the state the giant was in. Then, a glowing crimson light started to flush forth from those holes, and Alex bore his teeth down into a scathing scowl and exclaimed "Trying one last desperate attack, huh Kokonoe?!"

The boy stepped back and swung his arms out wide, exclaiming at the top of his lungs "Go ahead and try me! You think you got something up your sleeves that can stop ME?!" The light grew bigger and brighter, and Alex widened his eyes and swung his fingers at his body while pushing her on "Come on, whatcha got, whatcha got?! Seithr?! Pussy shit! Ars Magus?! A garbage magic invented by a garbage mage! Phenomenon intervention?! Bitch, I DARE you to try and overwrite my reality!"

As the energy started to flush forth from the tips of Tager's stubs, Alex swung his head forth and with a frenzied scowl proclaimed "There is NOTHING on this GODDAMN WORLD that will ever, EVER make me bend to YOUR-"

" _Anti-Genesis Theorem! FIRE!"_

That very moment, Alex's arrogance crashed and burned, becoming an expression of pure disbelief and shock as the energy shot forth from Tager's body too quick and too late for him to even hope of escaping from. The energy collided and quickly wrapped itself around the boy's body in the form of a sphere that perfectly compressed itself to compensate for Alex's height.

He fell to the ground and bounced back a couple times, while a sharp and unnatural power surged into his body. Letting out a bloody scream while trying to shoot fire forth from his body, Alex would find his ability to resist fading along with the fire around him. His body lurched around violently for a few seconds more before the energy finished having it's way with him, and he was left lying flat on the ground like some wasted hobo.

With his vision blurring, Alex struggled to lift his head up and look at Tager, who managed to wrench himself from the weakened netting. His voice became quiet and muffled as he spoke to his comrade "Mission accomplished Kokonoe."

" _Great, bring him to the drop-off point and I'll teleport him back here. Then, continue your primary mission to find Hakumen."_

Alex's mouth could barely form a scowl, and with his last fragment of consciousness fleeting the world before him swayed back and forth he murmured in sheer confusion "H…H…How…?" Then his head dropped hard to the ground, making him fall into a deep slumber…

 _Next Time: Science Fiction_


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: Roses with Thorns**

" _Mmmrrmmm…errrrmmm…"_

With a body stiff as stone, Alex slowly regained the feel of the world around him. There was nothing but a lifeless emptiness surrounding his form, leaving him feeling as though he floated amongst an endless dream. Yet he was completely responsive to the reality of his situation, even though what happened before was quite the jolt to his brain.

" _T-That's right…I was fighting Tager and…"_

The very moment he reflected upon Kokonoe's declaration of a term he assumed he had left in the past forever, Alex's eyes swung open with his expression being one of a tense and bitter scowl. What he awoke to was a sight far, far away from Kagutsuchi. He was in a small room that couldn't have been any bigger than the average household living room. It had a few desks put together in the shape of a slanted "U", and it had multiple computers of differing sizes and functions around it along with a rotating chair with a soft, lump backside in the center.

The desks were cluttered with knick-knacks and various junk that reflected greatly on the person who worked here. Sheets of theories and blueprints were resting atop the far left desk, weighed down by boxes of pocky, bags of chips and medicine jars. Behind the desk was a gumball machine and stacks of round containers with even more candy inside. A couple of the containers were even shaped like pumpkins, but their contents were unknown.

The candy was the only thing of comfort in this otherwise cold, monochrome carbon steel room, whose view was made all the more oppressive by the dark crimson sphere that Alex found himself trapped within. His body was leaned back, the muscles around his spine sore as shit, which to him was a sign he had been stuck in here for at least a few hours by now.

Slowly but surely, Alex curled his legs back and tried to get onto his knees so he could lean forward in a better stance. Upon doing so, he immediately threw a punch at these confining, crimson walls with all his strength. He did not even make the sphere bulge, and his punch was no stronger than the slap of a paper fan. With knuckles pressed against the sphere, Alex took a few breaths in at a sluggish pace and then arched his brows downward, assessing the state of his body.

"… _Nothing…I've got nothing…"_

Biting his teeth down into a scowl and letting out a quiet, dejected "Shit…!" he flopped his body back into a lean and lifted his legs up, laying his hands top his knees and lazily scanning the room again. Noticing the sphere was floating above a pedestal and below at least a few dozen metallic talons, Alex's eyes widened and his heart skipped a beat. He slammed his hands against the sides of his body and his face went pale for a few seconds until he realized that the talons were in a pacified state.

Even so, it was only when Alex slowly glided his hands across his arms and felt nothing but the rigid goosebumps that he let out a sigh of relief and murmured in some sort of trance "I-It's ok…I-It won't happen again…" He gripped the side of his left arm tightly as he did so, and took in one long, deep breath. Feeling as tense as he was, however, was more than enough motivation to try and escape this place.

Gritting his teeth and glaring across the sphere with all his rage, Alex remarked "You may have shutdown my powers, but I'll find a way to break out of here…Even if I have to break my arms to do so!" Kneeling upright again, Alex expressed his rage by swinging his arms out and pounding the front of this sphere with all he had. Each punch hit so hard that a shockwave rippled through his muscles, but yet again his efforts would amount to nothing.

Before he could struggle to the point of making his arms limp as jelly, the singular door in the room slid up and someone started to walk in. The boy froze with one fist held against the sphere and blankly glared at the person. They were a fairly young adult catgirl with a slim build. She had pink hair tied into a long ponytail, with a couple tufts up top that resembled large cat ears, which barely managed to obscure her actual white-tipped cat ears. She wore a white jacket open from the bottom of her petite chest downward that had a hole in the back for her pink, cat-like tails.

Her oversized sleeves were very puffy at the end and they each had three thin metallic plates resembling the slits for a cat's claws, and halfway down the sleeves holes were sliced open to allow her arms to slip through. On her lower body were a pair of red Capri pants with a black belt sloppily applied around her waist, causing the pants to slip down a bit and partially reveal her black undergarments. Walking around barefooted, the last things of note were the bags under her eyes and the cat-eared blue lollipop that she wiggled around between her left fingers.

The person was in the midst of casually strolling around to her chair until Alex slammed his open palms against the sphere and exclaimed "HEY! KOKONOE!" with all his ire. The woman then glanced over her shoulder and whispered crassly "Oh, so you're finally awake."

She turned away and curved around her desk, sucking on her lollipop while paying the boy no heed even as he pounded the sphere a couple more times and exclaimed "Don't you fucking ignore me! What the hell is this shit?! Who gave you access to this energy?! Who told you about my powers?!"

Kokonoe slid onto her chair and leaned back, spreading her legs as she turned the chair to glance at one of her computers. She pulled the lollipop out and tapped away at the keyboard, while Alex pounded the sphere one more time before yelling "GODDAMN IT, ANSWER ME!"

Kokonoe lazily lifted her eyes and inquired uncaringly "Don't you ever get tired of running your mouth like some goddamn lunatic?" Alex felt the sting of that remark harder than he was expecting. Gritting his teeth to the point of grinding them together, Alex dug his fingers into the sphere and growled out "And don't YOU ever get tired of being an amoral bitch?!"

The cat closed her eyes and turned her chair to the right, remarking curtly "You have no one to blame but yourself for this mess." Alex glared at her with all his fury and exclaimed "There is NO reason why something like THIS…" before rubbing his hands in circles around the sphere and continuing "Should be on this world! You were tipped off Kokonoe, so I demand to know who it was?! It was someone carrying a parasol, wasn't it?!"

Kokonoe naturally swerved her head to the left and pulled it back, scratching the side of her hair while remarking "What the hell are you blabbering on about now? Someone carrying a parasol…? What, you talking about Rachel?" The woman paused and looked at Alex, who at the moment had an exasperated look on his face while registering the vampire's name in his mind.

" _Wait…she knows about me as well? …No, she must have known the previous Overlord. But her, Kokonoe and Hakumen weren't alive two-thousand years. Tsk, this must be one of those time discrepancy deals…"_

As the boy hung his head a little and closed his eyes in concentration, Kokonoe pulled her lollipop from her mouth again and muttered "It doesn't matter, it's an uneducated, ignorant guess either way." She then went back to her computer and Alex snapped out of his thoughts to demand of her "Then what's going on here?! If you weren't told about the Anti-Genesis Theorem, then how the hell could you possibly have recreated it?!"

Kokonoe glanced over her shoulder with one eye and responded with a little more ire in her voice than before "Recreated? I invented the damn thing!" Alex tightly wound his hands into fists and pounded the sphere twice to add emphasis to his next statement of "BULL! SHIT!" He then looked Kokonoe dead in the eyes even knowing she wouldn't give him the same honors and bluntly called her out "The Anti-Genesis Theorem originated in the Elemental Overlord's home planet. You couldn't have possibly invented it!"

Kokonoe rolled her eyes and spat out a "Bah!" before waving her lollipop towards Alex and remarking "Like that's even much of an accomplishment. A monkey with half a brain and a base understanding of magic and science could've come up with that formula if given a reason to."

Her totally dismissive attitude was starting to really grind down on Alex's already short patience span, and he exclaimed internally _"Fuck this, time to get out of here!"_ A hasty desire to escape drew Alex's attention to the Gaia Temporis, and he reached into his right pocket to touch onto the stone. As he gave the thought to warp himself out of the sphere, however, he would find himself completely taken aback when nothing happened.

" _What?!"_ He looked down at his pocket and gripped the stone tightly a couple times, scowling and murmuring "Come on, this isn't the time to be finicky!"

"Hmmm, fascinating…So the origin point of your little time-space manipulations is a stone in your right pocket." Kokonoe finally cracked a bit of a smile and tapped on the keyboard, clearly recording the data she had just uncovered. Alex blankly stared at her before questioning "Wait what?! What the hell have you done now?!"

Kokonoe groaned a little bit and started rubbing her forehead in one hand while sucking on her lollipop. Then she remarked in an irritated voice "I'm getting real sick and tired of your questions, kid." Spinning her chair around she started to explain herself, not to appeal to some shred of humanity she might have, but rather to take a chance to rub her intelligence in Alex's face.

"You've done nothing but underestimate me you arrogant little shit. See that machine below you? It's constantly folding the fabric of space around your sphere, so no matter how hard you try, you won't be opening a pocket to escape!" Kokonoe cracked a grin and wiggled her lollipop towards the boy again, telling him quite bluntly "There's no way you're getting out of here on my watch. So, got any other complaints, ya noisy brat?!"

The two exchanged an intense glare for a good ten seconds. The room's temperature increased a little bit, and a tension formed that would only get worse as Alex's eyes grew increasingly fevered. He pulled the Gaia Temporis from his pocket and slammed it against the sphere so the Grimalkin would see it clear as day.

"You want to test me, Kokonoe?! Just because I can't warp space, doesn't mean I can't still make time my bitch! With one thought, I can make this entire building look like it came out of the Stone Age! Or I can age you until you're a wrinkly old crone! So either you let me out of here right NOW, or-"

"You don't have the goddamn balls to do it." Kokonoe interrupted with a brash, dismissive tone. She sunk her eyelids into an uncaring glare and turned away to concentrate on her computer. Alex wrapped his fingers as tightly around the Gaia Temporis as he could, his heart racing against his chest while he opened his mouth wide with saliva stretched between his teeth.

With a rage that could border on the traumatic, Alex yelled out in a deep, guttural manner "You listen to me right now you goddamn _**BITCH!**_ I will never, EVER let someone like YOU treat me like a goddamn GUINEA PIG! Never again…NEVER AGAIN…!" As the Gaia Temporis slowly released a glow from within, Alex's eyes were blood red from the stress of rage, and he was nearly on the verge of losing himself.

"Kokonoe, yet again your pursuit of a manner upon which to defeat Terumi has left you blind to the truth."

It was only the appearance of another being, one bored yet honest in their tone, that held Alex's attention away from the Gaia Temporis and prevented a potentially irreversible calamity. The boy swung his head to the left and saw a girl that wasn't there just a moment before. She was delicately draped in a gothic dress too big for one of her petite stature, yet her body exuded the air of a woman wise beyond her years. She walked with a black parasol draped over her right shoulder, and peeked past the bottom of it with a cold, blood-red glare towards Alex.

Her gaze focused on him for a little bit before she turned to Kokonoe, who sat upright on her chair and remarked in disdain "What the hell are you doing here Rachel? Can't you see I'm busy?" The vampire laid her parasol behind her head and brushed a hand up behind the side of her hair, cutting right to the chase as honestly as she could "Busy tormenting a poor, foolish child with snippets of a truth you refuse to fully divulge, you mean? …You do not even seem to care that, were it not for my timely interruption, you would've been nothing more than dust waiting to be blown away by a solemn breeze."

Kokonoe scoffed and remarked arrogantly "He was never going to go through with it." Rachel replied in turn with less courteous than she offered before "Do not underestimate the power of time, Kokonoe, as it is not a domain of which you shall ever stand atop of, no matter how hard you try."

"Tsk…" The Grimalkin sucked on her lollipop and looked back down at her computer. Rachel then closed her eyes and remarked "You are to relinquish custody of the boy over to me immediately, Kokonoe."

That snapped her eyes wide open and she slammed her hands down on the desk, glaring at the girl over her monitors while exclaiming "What the hell?! I ain't going to hand over shit to you! Not when I'm in the middle of trying to figure out how this brat's powers work!"

Rachel quickly replied "This is not my decree. It's a request from Takamagahara themselves. I would advise against your usual bratty fervor this time, Ms. Mercury, lest you want our estranged partnership to draw to a close."

Kokonoe crumpled her lips into a wiggling scowl and then gripped her lollipop so tightly she snapped it in half. Glancing at it falling out of her hand she let out a quick "Shit…!" then slipped her hand into the puffier part of her sleeve to pull out another one. She then glared at Rachel and with a deep, heavy sigh remarked "You can be a real pain in the ass sometimes Rachel…Fine, take the brat, see if I care!"

She slammed a fist down on a nearby keyboard and the talons around Alex's confinement pulled back, the energy breaking down almost instantly. The boy fell on top of the platform with a hard "Thud" and his limbs were laid out almost embarrassingly along it. Kokonoe looked away from the boy and went back to work on something else like this whole thing was unimportant to her.

Alex grit his teeth and swung the Gaia Temporis up again, but this time his wrist was swatted hard by the top of Rachel's parasol. With a stinging wince of his eyes, Alex turned his glare to the vampire as she glided the parasol along the air and held it over her shoulder again, remarking while in observation of the boy rubbing his now reddened skin "Honestly, put that troublesome thing away and stand up. Or are you simply too indulgent in the splendor of being made a fool time and time again?"

Arching his brows downward into a tired glare, Alex bemoaned in his mind _"From one bitch to another…Tsk, whatever, at least this one won't have me strung up for experimentation."_ The boy slowly placed the Gaia Temporis in his pocket and pushed himself to his feet, laying both hands in his pockets before hopping off the platform and turning to look at Rachel.

" _If nothing else…maybe I can actually wrench something out of Rachel. At least make all this bullshit mean something…"_ He then leaned back and let out a sigh. Rachel cracked a tiny smile and spun herself around like an elegant dancer before brushing her right hand delicately at the air. A tall, heart shaped coffin appeared and opened out of nowhere, with a cloud of crimson mist and tiny, fluttering bats emerging from around it.

"Come along now. We must make haste, or my tea shall get cold." Rachel walked at a brisk pace towards the door, and Alex followed suit a moment later. Before entering through the door, the boy glanced back at Kokonoe and saw her typing away like normal. With a tense scowl and growl combo, Alex swung his gaze away from that heartless witch and followed Rachel through her door.

The two were then swiftly whisked away to a more lively sight, a garden standing right outside of a Halloween inspired European castle. This garden was round and filled with a bed of bountiful red roses, while pumpkin headed lamp posts surrounded it. Each lamp had a pair of curly, bug-like antennae and stood directly against a thin iron fence covered symmetrically in bat décor.

Beyond the fence were two large glass domes stylized to resemble pumpkins, with their stems decorated with a multitude of bulbous orange lanterns. The castle in the center was dark and cold, with it having it's share of twisted, otherworldly architecture such as curving, slanted towers and a sharp grinned giant stone pumpkin on one side. Adding to the nightmarish allure was a lucid blood red full moon in the clear, dark night sky. But Alex judged the moon to be nothing more than an effect created by Rachel. Perhaps, along with the rest of the area, it was yet another way of honoring her vampiric heritage with pride.

Even returned to the place she called home, Rachel did not break her stride and kept walking forward, approaching a fancy porcelain white table that had been set for her by an elderly man standing dutifully at the wayside. The person in question wore a simple dark aquamarine suit adorned with gold trimming, the suit itself being what you'd normally find on the average Victorian era butler. Like the suit, the man kept himself prim and proper for his master, with his long white hair tied into a shoulder-blade length ponytail via a pink ribbon. His face had wrinkles around the forehead and cheeks, and nicely trim sideburns that rode down to a small, pointed beard.

He was clearly a man who had seen much of the world, as he projected both wisdom and a polite charm, and the way he bowed at Rachel was absolutely perfect. With a quiet smile, the man stood upright and laid a hand before his chest, remarking with a docile, elderly, Transylvanian accent "Welcome home Madame Rachel. I see your trip was successful."

Rachel brushed the side of her hair while folding her parasol up, laying it to rest beside her table while the man pulled out a chair for her on the northern end. "Quite so, Valkenhayn. And what of today's tea?" The man proudly smiled and opened his eyes, looking towards a pair of tea white cups set upon fine China plates as he delicately explained "Why, I have prepared only the finest of Oolong teas. The leaves were personally plucked by yours truly straight off the tree, and dried for JUST the right amount of time and not a second more."

Rachel sat down softly upon her chair and rested her arms atop her dress. With a warm, childish curiosity, the girl took a whiff of the rich aroma rising from that tender liquid in her cup and murmured "Ahh…As usual, your work is to be commended, Valkenhayn." The man bowed his head a little and responded kindly "You are too kind, Madame Rachel."

Alex just stood in the middle of the garden, blankly staring at the table as he noticed a second cup on the opposite end. Raising his brows and tilting his head, it took him a moment to register when Rachel looked towards him and requested "Take a seat, Mr. Whiter, and join me in having a nice hot cup of tea."

As she asked that, her parasol began squirming around, morphing into a blob that wiggled to her side and stood up in the form of a tall, overweight black cat with a puff white mouth, red eyes and two pink oval on it's cheeks. The cat, named Nago, wiggled it's tail back and worth and leaned atop the table, sniffing at the tea while remarking in a flamboyant, delighted tone "Oh you MUST let me have some of this tea as well Ms. Rachel!"

Then a small, pudgy red bat with tiny wings and dot-sized white eyes flapped down above the tea and pleaded in a cute, child-like voice "Oh me too, me too! Pleeeeeaaaase…?!" As the two familiars approached the cup, Rachel took her right hand up and swiftly swatted them in the face, causing them to pull back and let out a wincing "Ow!" while the vampire reprimanded them "Nago, Gii, you will behave yourselves, or you shall receive not even a sliver of food tonight."

The two whimpered submissively "Y-Yes ma'am!" and then backed off. Rachel picked her cup from the table and took a slow sip from it, opening her eyes to look towards the boy, who had not even moved an inch.

"Your tea will get cold." She quietly remarked before taking another sip. Alex blinked a couple times then slowly made his way to the table. There was no chair for him, but he didn't really feel like sitting in the first place. He started to reach for the tea cup, focusing only on that for a few seconds. But then he paused partway there and squinted, thinking in a flabbergasted manner _"Wait…what the hell am I doing…?"_

He then dug his hands into the right side of the table and threw it away, causing it to shatter upon impact with the fence. Alex then bent his right arm and swung it at Rachel, a pointer finger raised as his face contorted in rage. The vampire stared where the table once was while resting her cup on her lap while Nago and Gii shivered in fright. Before the boy could get a chance to open his lips, the very arm he raised defiantly was wrenched behind his back hard enough for the joints to crack, and his body was pinned to the ground by a foot planted firmly on his spine.

Valkenhayn had gotten to him with blinding speeds, and he held the boy down he took upon a more impatient tone with a set of fangs present in his scowl "How DARE you so savagely deny Madame Rachel's hospitality! Were it not for her you'd still be trapped in some cage like wild vermin!"

"I….GRRR…Never asked for a damn rescue! The only thing I want…GHH…IS TO GET SOME DAMN ANSWERS!" Alex squirmed left and right, trying to break free from Valkenhayn's iron grip. But he hadn't recovered the effects of the Anti-Genesis Theorem, leaving him powerless to his might.

Rachel took another sip of tea and then let out a dry sigh. Closing her eyes, she judged the situation with her snobbish brand of wit "Alas, I assumed that a change of scenery would've sufficed, but I find myself in the company of a child more beast than man…" The vampire looked to her butler and remarked "Valkenhayn, you may release him."

"Madame, with all due respect, but you should not bother yourself with this…child! It is a waste of your wisdom and patience." Valkenhayn gave his own view while trying to remain respectful, and Rachel took that into consideration as she replied "I appreciate your concern, Valkenhayn, but it is quite alright. He shall not lay even a finger on me."

With a tense scowl, Valkenhayn threw Alex's arm down and stepped off him, standing upright and taking a couple steps back as the boy slowly rose to his feet. Alex glared back while pivoting his arm around to get rid of any soreness. The man kept his scowl and his continued presence made it quite clear he'd have no mercy for any more unheeded transgressions from him.

"… _God this day can't possibly get any shittier…"_

He turned his attention towards Rachel and her two familiars, who bombarded him with taunts. "Yeah! You're gonna get it if you touch Ms. Rachel!" "Valkenhayn will whip you good, pretty boy." Alex flared his eyes up and exclaimed "Oh shut up! I'm not going to take shit from the dumbass duo of Fat Bat and Gay Cat!"

The familiars jerks back and muttered in shock "F-Fat…?" "G-Gay…?" Then Rachel took her cup of tea and placed it atop Nago's head, causing the cat to pinch his cheeks together and start sweating. As she floated off of her chair she plucked Gii from the sky and pulled his stretchy cheeks a couple times, then tossed him aside and strolled towards Alex.

Glancing up calmly at the boy's growing impatience, Rachel remarked "You wish to know the truth? Do you even know that what you want is truly what you need…Is your desire born from a grandiose observance of all around you, or perhaps it's nothing more than juvenile selfishness…"

Alex turned and swung his arm out, exclaiming before slamming a fist against his chest "Hey, I think I have every right to know what's going on here! Especially after what Kokonoe just tried to pull on me!" Rachel closed her eyes and turned to walk away, remarking in a crude, unhappy manner "So it is the latter…"

A few feet away from the boy, Rachel was greeted by a small breeze that brushed her hair aside. She laid her hands at her hips and remarked "I shall begin with a lesson then. Even the wildest of beasts can be taught new things…If one takes the right measures."

The vampire turned around and cracked a smile. Alex could feel mischief radiating around her very being and that left him feeling uneasy. Sure enough, Rachel closed her eyes and requested haughtily "So, like the dog you are, get on your knees and beg. Should you have even a shred of humility inside of you, then you will have proven there's still a chance you can be taught."

"E-Excuse me…?!" Even amongst an ever-growing hill of insults today, Rachel's bold remark somehow managed to stand atop them all as the greatest of them all in Alex's mind. The boy clenched his fists, but immediately upon doing so felt bloodlust piercing the back of his skull. With a simple glance back, he saw Valkenhayn keeping his dutiful posture complete with an arm crossed before his chest. However, that same arm started to grow grey fur with claws sticking to the end of his fingers.

Alex pulled his head back and a gulp of saliva wiggled it's way down his tensed up esophagus muscles before he looked back at Rachel, who stared at him with an almost anticipating grin. The boy resisted against his body's attempts to kneel as best he could, but soon he was on the ground. To add a bit more genuineness to his stance, he planted his fists in the ground and lowered his head.

"P-Please…can you tell me the truth about the Elemental Overlord's presence on this world…Madame Rachel?"

The boy could barely believe that he let those words slip, and he immediately bit down on the tip of his tongue to give himself a painful punishment. Rachel's smile widened a little bit and she brushed the side of her hair, remarking quite pleasantly "Ah, so the dog carries the pride of a man within him after all…" She laid her hands at her hips once more and told the grimacing boy "You may stand now."

Alex did so immediately, still keeping a tense look on his face as he looked towards the vampire, who pulled her head back to gaze at the crimson moon. "Are you familiar with how time flows, Mr. Whiter?" After she asked that, Alex held his arms against his chest and replied with some uncertainty "…Yeah?"

"For the sake of the subject, we shall use a river as a means of comparison. To the everyday human, time flows in a single direction, going from one end to another, much like a normal river would. Then there are those who believe in time flowing in multiple directions…Divergences, if you would prefer to call them. However, events that take place in divergences can only affect the divergence alone, it has no affect on the main flow."

Rachel turned her head a little bit and continued "Then there are phenomenon privy only to those who are trapped in a cycle of observance such as I, or those who have perverted the flow such as yourself. That is what is referred to as a 'Time Loop'. Tell me, have you ever heard of a river that flows in a complete circle, having not a beginning nor an end?"

Alex folded his arms against his chest and remarked "Of course not. A river can't feed into itself the necessary motion to achieve a continuous flow, by that point you'd be better off calling such a thing a moat or something. The only way a river would be able to keep the same water would be through like, condensation or something, and even then that's not very likely…"

Rachel widened her eyes and murmured in a dullard shock "My word…To think there would be a miniscule speck of intelligence within that raging lump you call a brain." Alex grit his teeth and muttered bitterly "Hey, if you can expect me to know one thing, it's about elements."

The vampire smiled and replied "A matter I shall not debate. Yet, your explanation is not without merit to our current discussion. It is as you said, a river cannot feed into itself because it would be an abnormality against God's design. In that same regard, God never intended for time to loop around in a continuous, unending cycle, so any act of such is a perversion of causality itself."

"…Riiiight, and?" Alex said after Rachel spent some time in a pause. The vampire opened her eyes and remarked "Yet that is exactly what occurs every one-hundred years on this very day. A doll is born and made to dance with the devil, forming a monstrous union whose very existence defies logic itself. And by it's nature, that very monster is able to push through time and space itself, returning to the very point in time that it was first observed in the world."

The boy closed his eyes and added to Rachel's explanation in a more straightforward and haughty matter while brushing his right arm out "Yeah yeah, the Black Beast is formed by Ragna and Nu when they drop into the Cauldron, and that thing vaults them to the past where the Six Heroes eventually stop it from rampaging across the world." This results in a pinkish lightning bolt nearly striking his body before he hops to the left and staggers on one leg, remarking in a frankly frightened tone "JESUS, REALLY?!"

Rachel drew right hand back beside her hip and continued with a brief insult "A dog shall not speak unless given the command to do so" before resuming on a more educational note as Alex scowled at her "Yes, every loop that time repeats begins and ends with the tragic union that creates that horrible creature. But while these events seem like nothing more than an endless waltz, there has always been a chance they can be stopped. And yet…"

The vampire took pause and closed her eyes, brushing a hand aside her hair and letting the breeze flutter her pigtails behind herself. "What if the flow was dirtied…Invaded by a foreign element that those who govern time could not possibly have accounted for…Then, does that not make breaking this unnatural flow all the more difficult?" 

"Hold on a second…Are you talking about me and Shina? Cause nothing we've done-" Alex hopped to the right to avoid another lightning bolt, this time having to dive at the ground to dodge a few more thrown in rapid succession. Rachel then spun herself around and kept her hand loftily hung before her waist as she looked down at the boy with contempt, remarking in a somewhat annoyed tone "Use what little intelligence you have to discern the truth. Surely, even you are capable of that much."

Alex widened his eyes and pushed himself off the ground nice and slow. Along the way he thought about what the vampire could possibly mean. _"What the hell's she on about? Everything's been the same since we've arrived. Ragna comes to Kagutsuchi, fails to stop Nu and becomes the Black Beast, then Take-Mikazuchi…"_ Pausing partway up, Alex repeated himself a few times _"Wait a tic…Ragna and Nu become the Black Beast…Ragna and Nu become the Black Beast…Nu…Nu…"_

His eyes widened, and vivid memories of Nu flashed through his mind. He remembered what she had, and from there the truth was as clear as the night sky above. Rachel cracked a smile and remarked in turn "So you have figured it out." Alex laid a hand on the side of his head and cracked a very pissed off scowl, growling out expressively "Son of a BITCH! Nu has a hold of that artifact piece! That means every time she merges with Ragna…!"

"The world of the past is forced to endure the wrath of a much stronger Black Beast."

Alex rubbed his head a little while turning it around, finding himself at a lost of words. He swung his fists beside his hips and swerved his body, stamping his feet at the ground. As he did so, Rachel remarked "Now…you've wondered what the original Elemental Overlord has to do with all this. Finally, I shall provide you with the answer you've desired so much."

The boy stopped his childish rampage and turned back at Rachel, his eyes widened in intrigue. The vampire whispered delicately "Because the Black Beast had gained strength, it was deemed necessary for the original Overlord to intervene in the affairs of this world. Him and a man by the name of Gabriel both came to this world, and allied themselves with the Six Heroes to defeat the Black Beast."

"… _Gabriel? Huh, I think I remember Shina bringing up that name before…"_

He then winced and looked puzzled at Rachel, remarking to her many a question "Hold the phone…If the original Overlord was here, why didn't HE pick up the artifact piece? An Aurian was with him, there's no way they couldn't have recognized it's presence. And even if they didn't notice the presence, how the hell does the artifact piece keep winding up back with Nu? More importantly though…Why the HELL didn't he kill Terumi?!"

His last question was asked with a pointer finger forcefully flung out towards Rachel. The vampire brushed the side of her hair and kept her calm replying "Every time that accursed beast is slain, the stone is nowhere to be found. I can only imagine that whoever dropped it into this world takes it away before it can be discovered, then returns it to the doll. As for the matter of Terumi, the original Overlord was only tasked with stopping the Black Beast…"

Alex scowled and remarked "Tsk, of course he was! Should have known better than to expect the 'fabled hero' to do the right thing and ignore those orders and slay that bastard?!" Rachel replied in turn "You would be wise not to speak as though an expert on what your predecessor was thinking."

The boy closed his eyes and with a curt scoff remarked "Yeah, you know, you're right! So it sounds to me like I should just go ask him directly!" Rachel sighed and murmured "Whatever do you mean…?" as though she expected idiocy of the highest degree.

Alex swung his right hand beside his hip and proclaimed "My Gaia Temporis is useless when it comes to traveling back in time, but that's alright, because all I have to do is jump into the Cauldron and I'll be able to meet the original Overlord in the past."

This time, Rachel was certain to hit her target with the lightning bolt she sent down upon Alex. The boy shook for a few seconds until the vampire decided stop, leaving him with a few singed marks across his skin. He coughed up a bit of smoke and was left gasping at words, giving Rachel ample time to reprimand him "Honestly, it is any wonder you have made it this far…Has your common sense long since abandoned you?"

"W-What's the big idea?!" Alex blurted, and Rachel bluntly spelt things out for him while her facial features wrinkled up unsettlingly in anger "And just how do you propose returning to the present? No, that's a foolish question…What I should be asking is, 'Do you expect to be able to return to a present the same as what you know now'?"

Alex brushed the soot off his chin with the back of his glove and mentioned "Oh give me a break, not like talking to the Overlord is going to change my future. The old man already knows I'm supposed to be his successor. There was a really specific prophecy and everything!"

"Unbelievable…Your sheer lack of disregard for those around you is matched only by your impudent pig-headedness!" Rachel was throwing out more insults without much of a point to go along with it, causing Alex to swing his arms out and declare "I care plenty about others! You don't know me at all, Rachel!"

"Oh really…? Then what of that poor girl who you've dragged into this horrible cycle? After all she's suffered, you would carelessly toss her aside just for the sliver of a chance to learn an ultimately inane truth?"

Those words were perfectly what Rachel needed to say, as Alex's rage was instantly pacified. His eyes froze in a stare of shock and his body stayed hunched forward, but with all tension gone from his muscles. "…W-What…? Shina's…suffering?" The boy slowly stood upright and turned his body away from Rachel, his arms limping beside his hips while his head hung with mouth agape.

"I-I had no idea…" He rubbed the back of his head, his words as genuine and guilt ridden as could be. He shook his head a couple times and admitted "Part of me…part of me didn't even think she was still alive, honestly."

"You have been so busy running rampant in our world it is any wonder that you even remember her name, let alone that she could potentially have been forced to endure this cruel cycle." Rachel's words were calmer but just as scathing as they were before, and she closed her before continuing "While she has struggled to help those she's crossed along her path, knowing full well her path shall likely end only in failure, you have wasted your time butting heads with the likes of Ragna, that obnoxious ninja, and Sector Seven's Red Devil…What have your actions done for the good of the world? Who has been graced with your help? Mr. Whiter, when I look at you I do not see a brave an honorable man staring back at me…I am greeted only by the presence of a child throwing something akin to a tantrum, but on a more much worrisome and self-destructive scale. And even I, an Observer, shall not stand by and watch as your belligerent actions doom this world to a state of eternal ruin."

Alex slowly turned his head to look at the vampire, biting his lower lip as he turned around and swung his hands out, telling her as honestly as he could "Look, I never had any intention of even being here this long! Shina and I…We were only supposed to grab an artifact piece so SHE could save her people from a tyrant It is not MY fault that some bastard gave Nu that stone and threw the time loops into even greater chaos than before!"

"That, you will find me incapable of denying…However, what you did do was activate that accursed stone without any regard for the consequences." As Alex stared puzzled at her, Rachel explained "That stone's power is far greater than you seem to realize it is…By using it to make yourselves one with the time loops, you have also accidentally caused those the both of you come in contact with to have fragments of their memories brought back to them when another loop begins. Thus, the longer you stay on this world, the more and more of this suffering the people shall recall, and eventually that despair will consume them…We shall all be permanently trapped."

With the vampire closing her eyes, Alex gripped his shaky fists and held them against his hips. Gritting his teeth, he started to break down, all that Rachel was bombarding him with starting to affect his mind with stress and guilt he never wanted to have.

"I…G-Gh-Goddamn it all…! I swear…I swear I never did any of that to damage this world! I was just trying to save both our lives…! So we could continue our journey together, so we could save Shina's people…So for once in my life, all my efforts to help someone wouldn't end in vain!"

Alex stood there for a few seconds, a tense mood spread across the garden. He then lifted his head up and a couple drops trickled down his cheeks. Rachel looked at them for just a moment and then turned around, letting the breeze brush against her body as she laid a hand on the side of her head and then remarked "You know exactly what must be done then, do you not? A loop does not exist if part of it's broken off from the rest."

The boy raised his eyes and looked a little surprised to hear her say that. Rachel then continued gently "That is, if the strength of your conviction is truly enough to break it." Alex blinked three times then wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve. The moment his arm parted, he had replaced sorrow with a confident grin, and he portrayed that feeling to Rachel by swinging his arms out and releasing a brief flare around his body. His strength returned, he proclaimed to her "Nu hasn't seen what I'm truly capable of!"

The vampire turned around, and as her eyes met the boy she cracked a light smile. Alex in turn placed one hand in his left pocket and rubbed the back of his head with another, blushing as he admitted "I-I know I'm not really the smartest person, but…If there's one thing I'm confident of, it's that my power should be more than enough to stop that doll. In fact, with that artifact powering her up, I might be the last person on this world who will be able to stop her."

"Then prove it. But, I have but one request to ask of you, Mr. Whiter before you leave." Rachel waited until the boy was looking her straight in the eyes before telling her in a deadly serious tone "The very moment you have gotten what you wanted, you are to leave this world immediately."

"Heh, that was always the plan. Don't have to ask me twice there." Alex smiled and clenched his fist before his chest. Then with a more docile expression, he hastily inquired "Oh yeah, one more thing…Just why was Kokonoe so adamant about capturing me anyways?"

"I will not pretend like I understand how that child thinks sometimes…But I can think of a couple reasons. Either to learn how to use your powers to take revenge upon Terumi for killing her mother, or maybe she has nothing but hatred for anyone with the powers of an Elemental Overlord because the original did not take it upon himself to slay Terumi before her mother could've been killed."

"So it was all for revenge no matter how you look at it…Tsk, well whatever, it can't be soon enough that I'll never get to see her face again. Now, if you'll excuse me…time for me to finally go do the right thing." The boy touched the Gaia Temporis and used it's ability to warp space to teleport himself out of this area. When he was gone, Rachel closed her eyes and started to fall back, to which Valkenhayn was already there to put another chair down for her to rest upon.

She laid her hands on her skirt and looked towards the moon, and her butler inquired with a deep curiosity "Madame Rachel, if I may be so forward…Why did you not tell the boy about Ms. Aurora's deaths?" The vampire replied with simple honesty "He will learn of that soon enough. Now then, I require another cup of tea, Valkenhayn. This day has truly been tiring…" With a bow, Valkenhayn replied "Very well, I shall deliver it post-haste" and he was off, leaving Rachel to ponder upon what had unraveled before her…

 _Next Time: Dying for Love_


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: Awakening the Chaos IV: Absolution of Chaos**

Alex was whisked out of the Gaia Temporis' warp right at the bottom of the stairs leading to Kagutsuchi's HQ. Immediately as he feet landed on the ground he stumbled a bit forward and his face cracked a strange, unhinged grin for just a brief second. He laid a hand on the side of his head and quickly laid that expression to rest with a couple blinks of the eyes and a shake of the head.

He then put a hand in his right pocket and patted the stone a couple times, remarking in a soft but reprimanding tone "If only you were this responsive more often…" When he was done he made a sharp turn of the head to look skyward, finding that night had fallen and the moon rose high above the city. Things felt pretty quiet around here, so eerily so in fact that Alex quickly spun around just to make sure there were people in the city still.

Thankfully, the lower levels were bustling with pre-New Year's fireworks and cheer, with the city lit up like a Christmas display. Alex swiped a hand across his forehead and breathed a heavy sigh, followed by stretching back a little bit to work out some kinks in his body. All the while, his thoughts were focused on a certain someone.

" _Shina…You're somewhere down there right now, aren't you? I…I honestly had no idea you were suffering."_ A heavy heart guided his words, and only in this solemn moment could he admit this all without hesitation _"None of my training could've ever prepared you for this. Hell, you never should've HAD to go through something like this. I can only imagine you've tried to make friends with people like Noel, only to have it all torn away every time things reset…"_

He could recall how precious memories were to someone like Shin, and that just made him feel even more guilt than he already did before. This did not mix well with the prior feeling of powerlessness he had over the last hour, and soon enough he tensely coiled his fingers into fists and cracked a bitter scowl.

He was helpless to escape Kokonoe's lab, and he could only stand by and let Rachel ridicule him, as one false move and Valkenhayn would've struck through his heart with one swipe of his lycanthrope claws. Without his elements, Alex had no power to call his own, and it was a feeling he loathed to the utmost degree.

For a moment, he saw his younger self standing in front of him, and with a glare of sheer disdain he turned his back on that visage and remarked "I'll never go back to being that person. So long as evil exists in this universe, someone like me HAS to have the power to burn it all to ash!" Alex gripped his gloved fist before his chest and glared up at the grand cathedral, gritting his teeth with rage burning towards Nu.

"Shina…I can't apologize enough for my stupidity this time. I never should've had to fight Nu twice…And I promise you…" A fire raged around his body as his face was cast in a gruesome, angered shade before he bluntly remarked "There will NOT be a third fight."

He swung his arm beside his hip and cast a wing of fire beside his body, then broke into a sprint towards the staircase. He climbed it in two seconds and made a leap towards the door, kicking into the center of it with all he had. A shockwave rocked the structure and disrupted it to the point of crumbling it all to rubble in a matter of seconds. Alex then continued forward and broke into a somersault on his way day, sliding through the entry hall and making it to the foyer momentarily.

Standing up, the boy's gaze swerved around the room for any signs of life, but the place was barren as could be. There hadn't even been any signs of battle, which would've been enough to suggest that at the very least Ragna, Noel and/or Jin had come by here. With not even a howl of wind entering his ears, the building felt hollow, as though its denizens had just been made victim to a swift and tragic apocalypse.

Now having more of a chance to think things over, Alex closed his eyes and tapped a foot at the ground. That was when he recalled why this building was empty, and his teeth grit into a scowl. _"That's right…Terumi would've already drained the souls of everyone present here to fuel the Cauldron at the very top."_ Opening his eyes, the boy scoffed out "Bah, no point worrying about that right now…I can deal with that after I've killed Nu and gotten the artifact piece."

He walked to the edge of the floor and climbed atop the fence, looking down into the stony abyss. Taking a deep breath, the boy tucked his hands into his pockets and made the leap down. He didn't bother to cushion the fall with air as he knew his legs could handle the impact. He crashed down in front of the inactive Cauldron and bent forward just a bit, a wave of dust spreading across the ground.

As he stood back up he looked around, stating quietly "No signs of Hakumen either…This is really strange." The eeriness brought upon by silence would soon be drowned by one created by the Cauldron's activation. The machines whirred to life and like before the cross rose from the boiling energies, all the while Alex stood in attention, waiting for the Murakumo to make her appearance.

The chimes attached to her cloak rang and echoed in the hollow cavern, and her body descended to the ground bathed in a light that made her appear like an angel descending from Heaven. But this monstrosity did not deserve such a comparison, and Alex glared straight at her like the demon from Hell she was. Nu slowly opened her eyes and floated there, giving not a single response to Alex's presence.

The boy tilted his head aside and threw a quick wad of spit at the ground before gritting his teeth and glaring at the Murakumo unit. He then swung his right hand up and drew his sword, but before he decided to attack he had one thing to get off his mind.

"HEY! I know you're watching me through this doll you goddamn bastard! So why don't you come out and show yourself?!" One would assume he was yelling for Terumi at first glance, but the truth of the matter was that he demanded the presence of the one pulling the strings behind the strange aura appearing. That same person was also responsible for the artifact pieces getting handed out like candy to the more than welcoming hands of these villainous types.

There was no response again, and with an eruption of fire from his body Alex held his sword tighter and exclaimed "What, are you doubling down on cowardice now?! You too afraid to even hold a conversation?!"

"Hehehe…Who are you talking to? There's no one here beside us!"

Alex paused for a moment as a playful, childish voice entered his ears. He wiggled a pinky finger in his ear to clean it out, swearing he was just hearing things. However, the moment he straightened his head out and took another look at the Murakumo unit, he saw them cracking a smile while letting out a quiet giggle.

"What the hell…?" Alex lowered his sword a little bit as a cold sensation went through his body. He was feeling a disturbance unlike anything he had felt in a long, long time, and if that was the case then things were likely only going to get worse.

Nu perked her brows up and said giddily "I remember you! You're the screaming boy that was with Ragna!" Alex's body tensed up a little and he glared straight at the Murakumo, wondering _"What, how the hell is she recognizing me?"_ before having to quickly pause and take a relaxing breath upon recalling what Rachel had said about the Gaia Temporis affecting the memories of those he's come in contact with.

But then Nu, with one of her arm blades raised to scratch the side of her curious face, murmured out "This would make this the…fourth time I've gotten to come out, right? And only the second time I've seen you! Hehehe, whatever happened to 'I'm going to tear your next iteration to shreds', hmmm?"

It was not the attempt at imitating Alex's voice that left the boy temporarily covered from head to toe in goosebumps, but the accuracy upon which Nu recalled those words that sent the necessary chill coursing throughout his body. With a shaky scowl, Alex's face began to exude a chilling sweat as he turned his head aside and hesitantly asked "What…what did you just say?"

Nu let loose a prolonged gasp as her fingers spread before her mouth, and insincerely she giggled and 'apologized' "Oh I'm sorry! Was Nu not supposed to say that?" She then drew her hands beside her hips and innocently commented "Hehehe…! But the person who took care of Nu's soul said it'd be fun if I did, and judging by the look of terror on your face…They were right!"

The Murakumo continued to laugh for a few more seconds like a jolly little schoolgirl, a breadth of emotions coming out that Alex could not possibly have expected to bear witness to without Ragna being in the area. Digging at the side of his face with an irate, confused glare, Alex yelled out to her "What the HELL are you even TALKING about?! You were just born into this world! You shouldn't remember any of that!"

Nu looked straight at Alex with a more cold and serious glare, remarking nice and slow while a hint of glee burrowed itself into every word "Oh but I have…I remember EVERYTHING that's happened. Every time I've killed…Every drop of blood I've spilled…And all those glorious, WONDERFUL times that I've become one with Raaaagna…"

As Alex grew more and more angry in her presence, Nu's face grew bright red and she licked her lips to the point of leaving them able to glisten in the presence of the light from the Cauldron as she reared her head back and seemed almost in a state of pleasure. She then moaned out "And it's all thanks to that stone that strange person put inside of me…! Now, Nu can experience this joy again…and again…and again and again and again…AND AGAIN! Oooooohehehe, Nu couldn't possibly BE any happier!"

Picking out a particular detail from that ecstatic proclamation was much harder for Alex amidst the rage welling up inside of him, but when he did so he growled out to her "So what you're telling me…is that the artifact piece housed your soul every time the Black Beast was defeated…and then it was transplanted into the new body that was created every loop?!"

Nu swung forward in a rickety manner akin to a marionette and slowly clapped her hands together, giving a backhanded compliment in the form of "That's right! Now Nu will forever remember the pleasure of bonding with Ragna, and none of those BASTARD humans will ever get the chance to torture me again!" She then swung her arms out, as though to embrace the gods themselves in appreciation for this gift before she spoke out blissfully "Nu's truly, truly in heaven, and I will never, EVER leave it!"

The moment Alex swung his sword up he kicked a gale of power that made Nu blink a couple times then lower her head to stare at him with a mischievous smile. The boy grit his teeth and lashed out at her "You're nothing more than a monster, and your 'heaven' is a complete and utter farce built on the corpses of all those slain by the Black Beast!"

Nu's smile slowly slid to both sides of her cheeks and she got rather cheeky with the boy as she told him "Why should Nu care about the lives of others? Have they ever made Nu happy…? Nope! All they care about is themselves! Ragna's the only person who can truly, TRULY make me feel alive!"

"Only because you force him to bond with you…!" Alex exclaimed, but Nu simply shook her head and mentioned "Ragna's such a naughty boy that he doesn't know what he wants…But Nu does, Nu knows that what Ragna wants the most is to destroy everything. He hates everything in the world…Just like me…and just like **YOU.** "

Alex widened his eyes and exclaimed "This has nothing to do with me! You're just a lunatic, you don't understand a damn thing about people!" Nu held a hand towards him and cracked a gleeful smile, telling him quite brutally "But you came here to destroy me right? That's the only reason you're here…To stab me, to slice me…to break my head open again. There's no other reason why you've come here!"

The boy swung his head to the right a little and with some crispy embers slowly rising from his body his eyes widened furiously and he declared "I've come to destroy you because it's the right thing to do! I'm going to fix the mistakes I'VE made to this world, so the people won't have to suffer the despair you and that bastard following us have brought upon them!"

Nu sunk her eyelids halfway and her smile widened more as she pulled her hand back and began to whisper "Heheh…Oh, I know what this is about now. It's about that stupid girl isn't it…? What was her name again…? Shina Aurora…?"

Alex's eyes were straining themselves to get even wider as a sharp jolt ran itself up his spine. "Shut up…" He knew the implications of what Nu was getting at, but his growls of rage would in no way quell the doll as her face reddened and she laid her hands on the sides of her face "She screamed so much when she died both times…It felt soooo good to hear."

"Shut. UP!" Alex got a little louder and the fire around his body grew darker and hotter. Nu's mouth started salivating as she got more intimate with the details "She cried your name the second time, begging you to come save her…Ooooooh, that despair she felt made my body tingle from head to toe…"

"I'm telling you to SHUT UP!" The boy's fire was threatening to consume him whole in rage and his voice got more hoarse and violent. Nu's arms slid down to cross in an embrace before her chest and her eyes started to glaze over as they pulled back into her head and she could barely control her emotions "I almost wish she'd show up again so I could try and kill her in new, more interesting ways! First I cut her head off…then I stamped on her tiny little heart!"

"THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING, SHUT UP!" Alex's voice roared and echoed as his fingers moved towards the seven triggers on his blade. With Nu's arms seductively gliding towards her nether regions, she reared her body back and moaned "Because when I saw her wallowing in despair…I-I-I…got so **mooooist** …"

The triggers were pulled without a second of hesitation, and Alex was thrown into a golden inferno that raged and lashed out against Nu's body. She leaned forward with a sinister grin of anticipation as the golden flames broke apart and the boy stood there with the golden-crimson, feathery wings of a Phoenix on his back and his eyes now enraged with a similar shade on the irises.

Alex rose off the ground and dug his elbows into his hips while clenching his fists tight, and he let loose a wildfire that not only burned through the room but rose up and scattered itself into the foyer of the cathedral as well. Nu stood still and sweated in the presence of the searing flames that left the atmosphere waving from so much heat, while Alex glared down with a beastly expression and exclaimed with a deep, echoing roar "I WILL BURN… **EVERY** LAST ATOM OF YOUR BODY, YOU BIIIITCH!"

Nu grinned and her Murakumo sword dropped behind her. Before she could perform the merge, however, Alex slammed his feet on the ground before her and thrust his right fist hard into her chest. All the fire he spread forth gathered into the knuckles and blew a large chunk of flesh off of Nu's chest with explosive power, and a moment later she and the Murakumo unit are flung straight through the cross she had emerged from.

The top half of the cross starts to collapse towards the Cauldron, while Nu flies straight through the dust left from the impact with the Murakumo bonded to her and the artifact piece's chaotic power activated. Her mouth was quite agape in glee as she flung her swords and giggled out "You were holding out on me! Hahahah…LETS HAVE SOME FUN!"

Alex violently swung his blade out and deflected all the swords to the ground with ease, then the very moment Nu's grinning face was inches away from him he thrust an uppercut straight into her lower jaw. A shockwave of fire crackled through the air along with the sounds of her jaw bones crunching together, her body stiffening upright while Alex quickly flipped his blade around and swung his arm up to cut her from the center of the chest until he ripped the blade right through her chin.

He then jerked the blade right down before his waist while keeping it in a reverse grip, swinging the other arm before his head and bringing down a wave of heat to roast the skin off of Nu's face right down to the bone. As the Murakumo's eyes started boiling over she glided back to the edge of the Cauldron and mentally ripped the blades out of the ground, giving them one spin around before lunging them at Alex's neck.

With a casual swing of the arms the boy launched a wave of air to blow the swords back before charging straight at Nu, who was already regenerating the wounds. He thrust his sword deep into Nu's gut, making blood and acid gush out the back and leak down her legs.

"HRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHH!" Alex roared with the fervor of his form's namesake as he grasped his sword tightly and raised Nu above his head, slamming her skull first into the ground, which sent her grey matter and bone splattering across the floor. He wrenched the sword out and her body started to fall, but before the boy could fry her with a cone of flames from his right palm the Murakumo's floating swords flew at him again.

He swung his blade at blinding speeds around his body to repeatedly deflect them while Nu spun her legs around while trying to get onto her feet. Then she kicked her body back and once her skull was fully reformed she began her counterattack. Slamming her hand into the ground, the Murakumo created a magic sealed that sent energy bolt that lashed and tore up the floor, followed by sending two buzz saws spinning towards the sides of Alex's legs.

The boy stamped one foot on the ground and rose ten feet off the ground, letting the buzz saws grind against each other while fending off the blades that Nu sent his way by swinging her arms upward. He sacrificed speed for strength in his swings, slamming into the blades hard enough to pin them to the ground, with each collision sending shockwaves into the sides of the chamber and cracking it apart.

Alex dispelled his sword and descended straight down while wreathed in a thick golden fire, slamming into the ground before Nu and setting off a massive bomb of flames that sent the Murakumo crashing into the wall while burning off most of the front of her body. Giving not an inch of pause to this doll, Alex charged straight at her while swinging his right fist in a burning hook, moving so fast that his body was carried off the ground.

But that speed would prove to be a detriment to him this time, as he did not have time to stop as Nu cracked a grin and summoned a pair of bladed talons from a foggy black rift above her head, both of them slicing down towards his open arm. The boy looked up with a grimace and started to reel his limb back as hard as he could, but the blades managed to not only cut through the green-wispy shield around his body but drew blood from the skin past the elbow.

Alex grinded back along the ground, digging his heels through the tiles until they were in the dirt underneath, swinging his bleeding arm out to shake the leakage away while briefly gritting his teeth and looking relatively unsurprised. Nu pulled herself from the wall and wobbled around a little, raising her gleefully smiling head to taunt to the boy "Hehehe, I know all about your silly little shields thanks to my bonding time with Ragna! So sorry, but I'd rather you not wear protection!"

"I don't NEED it!" The boy ran straight at again with a thunderous boast, while the Murakumo swung her right arm up and tried to stab him through with a couple energy blades. But with a hard swerve to the left Alex got around them and swung his right elbow up to Nu's face, smashing her with the force and electricity comparable of the hammer of Thor. The Murakumo held her head against the elbow with all she had and then swung her right arm up, covering it in the darkness reminiscent of the Black Beast so her blade could pierce through the blue shield around Alex's body.

The blade then plunged itself into the skin ahead of Alex's armpit and drew a spurt of blood from it. Before the Murakumo could dig in any deeper, Alex focused on the iron in the blood that dripped onto Nu's blade and turned it into carbonite, spreading it out as fast as he could to cover the entire blade. He then controlled the carbonite covered blade to pull away from his arm while simultaneously pushing himself back a couple inches.

He then grabbed Nu's arm by the wrist while smashing her in the face with his fist. The whole building trembled and the Murakumo was launched far away, her arm being ripped off in the process. Alex casually threw the arm towards the Cauldron and then swung his arms out, charging flames in his palms to such an extent that an excess flew out and created the towering visage of a Phoenix behind him.

Nu dug her bladed feet in the ground to grind to a halt and then started regenerating her arm. Even looking absolutely puny in comparison to the shadow cast by the Phoenix visage, Nu gave a grin of pure ecstasy and declared "This is so much fun! I want you to burn me, I want to stab you…I want to keep doing this over and over again, it's such the perfect warm-up for Ragna!"

With a frenzied expression, Alex exclaimed "This isn't a warm-up, it's a straight-up burning, you damn bitch!" He then slammed his palms together, his muscles getting sorer as he had to force himself to contain all these flames into a single, compressed orb. The building trembled, struck in either awe or fear at the boy's pure power, and with his body held back he fired a massive beam of flames straight at Nu.

The Murakumo swung her renewed left arm out and summoned a massive rift, assaulting the front of Alex's beam with dozens of energy blades a second to keep it at a stand-still. Having none of that, the boy held his left arm up to maintain the attack while going for the Gaia Temporis in his pocket. Stopping time, Alex's expression grimace unhinged for a moment before he broke into a run around the struggling attacks, breaking the frozen time the very moment he stepped down behind Nu.

He drew his sword and swung it down at the doll's back, but in a split second she swung her darkness covered right leg back and stabbed through the boy's white veil to pierce his abdomen. Nu slowly creaked her head back with a sadistic grin and remarked gleefully "I know EVERYTHING you can do. Why don't you show me something…" before beginning to swing him towards the wall and exclaiming "DIFFERENT?!"

She grinded his body up against it, tearing feathers off of the wings and roughening the skin under his shirt enough to draw blood. Then she pinned him against the wall and lifted her leg up so she could push in a little closer, where she then stabbed her blades into the boy's arms and spread them wide, cracking the shoulder bones and pulling at the joints to the point they should've broken.

"Hehehe, all your efforts will fail…You can come at me again and again, do this dance as many times as you want…But I will just learn all your tricks." Nu's innocent voice was simply unnerving with the words she used, but not enough to truly stop Alex's defiance as he spat a wad of saliva into her visor.

Nu winced for a moment but cracked a wide grin, telling him in an alluring, taunting voice "You're such a child…What's wrong, can't handle a woman like-" Then her visor started burning off from the point the spit touched outward, the saliva fizzling with an acidic compound. Alex grinned as her confidence faded and she pulled an arm away to tear the visor right off, giving him the chance to swing his hand at Nu's face and blast her point-blank with fire.

Her body was forced back with her skin and flesh burned off, and the very moment Alex landed on the ground he applied heat to his wounds to cauterize them and then tucked his hands into his pockets, making thick, rocky spikes thrust out from the walls around him to stab through Nu's shoulders and hips, tearing off her arms and suspending the doll twenty feet ahead of him.

Alex slowly walked towards Nu while drawing his electrified hands from his pockets. As her head regenerated he slammed his hands against the pillars and sent a million volts through them into the Murakumo's body. Her figure became a violent, spasming lightshow that the boy glared straight at while proclaiming at the top of his lungs "You think I'm just a one-trick phony?! I have all fucking elements at my disposal! That means I can think of at LEAST ten-thousand different ways to kill you!"

Continuing to assault Nu with electricity as she screamed in delight despite her lungs being roasted by the second, Alex told her bluntly "You're just a bitch with swords! You could not even FATHOM the amount of people who have fallen at my feet who have wielded those very same weapons! What makes YOU any different than THEM?!" With one last emphasizing of his rage, the boy set the spikes off with explosions that tore large chunks of Nu's charred body apart, revealing the artifact piece burrowed behind what little remained of her chest cavities.

But Alex was blind to his goal, for rage had consumed him like a ravenous cancer. After all the shit this world had thrown at him, he wanted to feel an overwhelming sense of catharsis just this once. Spreading his wings wide and flaring up orbs of fire in his palms whose energies lashed up his arms, the boy rapidly flung explosive fireballs into Nu's body. He swung his arms out so fast they couldn't be seen, and soon enough neither could Nu's remaining flesh and bone.

He kept walking forward one step at a time, widening his eyes as he walked into the traces of smoke to blow it all away with wind so he could keep an eye on the Murakumo's dwindling form, of which only ash soon remained. The very moment Alex let up and leaned forward to catch his breath, Nu's body started to regenerate from either the ashes or nothing at all. The boy grit his teeth down to the point of wearing down the enamel, then swung his gloved hand before his face while erecting his body perfectly upright.

"No amount of regeneration…No amount of Life Links you have…Will save you from THIS! Re-" Before another word could slip forth, a giant energy blade emerged from the sky and guillotined though his right shoulder and wing. A sharp pain wrenched itself through Alex's body as those parts fell to the ground, but the feeling would only grow worse as his other arm and wing was cut off by another blade just a moment later.

Alex stumbled back and hastily cauterized his bleeding sockets, grunting a couple times while his head started throbbing from an overwhelming sensation of pain thrust upon him. His heart raced at a fatal pace and he soon dropped to his knees. "Nnrggh…Rgghhh…Gaaaaaah…Aaaarghhh…!" His grunts were quiet but rough, and he bravely tried to fight against all the pain. He raised his head up a little as by now Nu had awakened with a newly rejuvenated body, making her look as though she was fresh out of the Cauldron minus her still destroyed visor.

The Murakumo's grin was wider and more malicious than anything she had put on before, and yet her voice contained the same taunting glee that she had carried throughout the fight as she stared down at Alex and told him "Wow, you really just don't know when to die, do you? Heheh…It's almost a pity you can't bond with me. Just imagining what type of monster we could've created…Ooooh, it's just too much for me to bear!"

The boy hunched forward, hanging his head against his legs while his stomach churned in disgust and he felt ready to throw up. Nu took a couple steps forward and faked pity as she asked "Awww, what's the matter? Too hurt to talk shit anymore?"

"Recognize…password…Lumina and…Abraham Whiter…"

Nu blinked a couple times, unaware of the glove clicking off of Alex's fallen right arm as she leaned her head down, twisting it to plant the left ear close to the boy's head. "I'm sorry…did you say something?"

Hiding a very defiant grin, Alex swiftly swung his head up and yelled "EAT SHIT!" before chomping down on Nu's ear lobe hard enough to stop her from pulling away. He the summoned his sword and commanded it to stab into the back of his fallen right arm, then he pulled it away from the glove to reveal that the hand is consumed in a heavy amount of rainbow colored fire. Thinking as fast as he could while nibbling down on Nu's ear while trying not to throw up, Alex guided his sword and fist into the air as high as he possibly could.

Nu simply remarked tauntingly "Oh come on now, is this really the best you can come up with? Honestly, you have no idea how to ple-"

"BLAZING OVERLORD FIST!" Alex grumbled out through his teeth as the rainbow flamed fist came barreling straight down towards the two of them. Nu glanced up just in time for it to collide with her face and set off a massive, deafening explosion of flames that consumes not just the two of them, but also spread out across the entirety of the Kagutsuchi HQ. At such a close proximity to the blast in his weakened state, Alex was swiftly thrown back into a state of unconsciousness…

But he woke up just as quickly as he was knocked out, though it took a few seconds for him to creak his eyelids open. To his surprise, he found himself staring straight towards the starry night sky.

"… _I-It's all gone…I took down the whole Kagutsuchi HQ…J-Just as I expected…"_ He couldn't feel a single part of his body, but he could swear on his life that he was smiling. _"At least…I-I took that bitch down with me…I-I can't pick up the artifact THIS time, but at least this'll res-"_

"Hahahahaha! You really, REALLY can't die, can you?!" But the chilling laughter of the Murakumo unit would leave a harrowing cold creeping across his body that he just could not ignore. With what strength he could, he lifted his head up just a couple inches off the ground and found Nu slowly walking over to him. And worse of all the Cauldron, the most key component in stopping this whole catastrophe from unfolding again, was still completely intact.

At that point Alex's eyelids began to shut, and if his tear ducts weren't dehydrated tears would've come out of them like a river. Nu stopped a couple inches before the boy's legs, her pitch black aura and pale white eyes overtaking the serenity of the night sky, leaving nothing but a nightmarish sight in Alex's eyes.

"You look disgusting…so shriveled and pathetic…Heh, it's a perfect look for a monster, wouldn't you agree…Ragna?" Nu slowly turned her body aside, giving Alex the perfect view of yet another horrific sight to add onto the growing pile this day. Suspended in the air by all of Nu's swords pinned through him was Ragna the Bloodedge, whose clothes were burned across the front, more than likely due to Alex's final attack.

The man glared at the Murakumo with all his hate and yelled in his roguish voice "GodDAMN you…Let…GO OF ME!" Nu wiggled her right pointer finger at Ragna and told him "Uh-Uh-Uh Ragna…That's not right at all! You should be telling Nu to _never_ let you go!"

" _W-Why…?"_ Alex could not believe that all this was happening. That even after fighting as hard as he did, trying as hard as he could to kill Nu, the universe simply spat in his face and gave her everything she needed to once again become the Black Beast. In his mind, he was sure that the Blazing Overlord Fist was the key to stopping her, and it made no sense whatsoever that Nu was still standing before him.

The Murakumo, as though feeling the very thoughts radiating from the boy's mind, twisted her head to the right and with a malicious grin jabbed her own chest a couple times. Alex then widened his eyes and realized what had happened. Her soul could not have been burned up, because she hid it away safely in that accursed artifact piece. In the face of such realization, Alex could only force a hoarse laugh up his throat…

There is something Alex has kept only to himself throughout most of his life. He, surprisingly, is not someone who believes in the existence of God. Ever since his parents died, that belief became the forefront of his everyday thoughts, and cruel, terrible events such as this was simply another knife that twisted that belief deeper into his mind.

For a moment, the boy just simply stared up at the stars as best as he could, and in his mind cursed the higher powers that be _"And even if there was a God…then you're the cruelest bastard in this goddamn universe…"_

All the while, Nu slowly walked over to Ragna's suspended body and raised a hand, ready to caress the side of his face as he struggled to turn his head away. The Murakumo smiled, seeing nothing wrong with showing affection to the man she loved with a kiss on the cheek even as he screamed at her "Y-You goddamn…bitch!"

Nu pulled her hand back and lovingly remarked "It's not me you should hate Ragna…It's him." She pointed towards Alex, puzzling the man deeply. With a pleasured tone, the Murakumo walked over to the boy and commented "Last time I saw him, he had tied you up in ropes and carried you aaaaaaaall the way to me…And now this time, he almost killed you too, all to hurt me." It was absolutely REVOLTING to watch the doll try to garner sympathy from her captive audience.

Nu bent down and looked Alex straight in the eyes, tilting her head and remarking "But Nu's a strong woman…Isn't that right, Phoenix of Destruction?" With a giggle as Alex squirmed, Nu glanced over her shoulder and watched as Ragna grimaced, remarking in a vaguely remembering manner "T-That's right…I…I did see this kid before…somewhere…"

Nu's face lit up like a fireworks show and she said in a pleased tone "That's right Ragna! You DO remember a bit of it, don't you? You must also remember bonding with Nu, and how happy it really, REALLY made you feel!"

Ragna slanted his brows and exclaimed "I-I don't know what the hell you're talking about…" And he was being completely honest too, as Nu soon let out a deflated sigh and shook her head a couple times, only for her expression to light up in glee as she proclaimed "That's ok! I'll make you remember soon enough! But fiiiiiirst…"

Nu twisted her head back to look down at Alex, cracking a wide grin before saying "What should I do with you…? Hmmmhmm…Oh, I know!" She raised her sword arms beside her head, and then slowly and sadistically she said "I will stab you as much as I want! I mean, you said you can keep coming back, right? Over and over, time and time again…And every time, I'll be back here, waiting to tear YOU to fucking shreds…That was how it went, right, RIGHT?"

As Nu kneeled down on top of the boy's legs, his heart skipped a beat. The echo of boasts past was the last wound the Murakumo needed to inflict, and by now Alex was more than ready to die. However, before he was torn apart and pounded into like a slab of raw meat, the boy forced one last boast from his mouth with all he could.

"Heh…yeah, we can do this again…I'll make sure of it. Cause you keep forgetting one important thing…Nu…You're fighting for a selfish, heartless purpose…While I stand in defense of not just the world, but all the good people who live in it…Trample all over me all you want. I'll take every sword you throw, I'll endure every bit of sadism you have…Cause ultimately…"

The boy closed his eyes and saw Shina in his mind, which made him crack a smile that he could feel. Then, knowing full well how much it would enrage her, Alex mocked the very thing Nu wanted the most "I-I…am fighting for a happiness that means something…Everything you're doing…Will mean nothing when you die…All your love, all your happiness…Is **WORTHLESS**."

With one last defiant laugh, Alex found himself not only coughing, but his chest stabbed straight through by Nu's right arm. The Murakumo stood up but remained hunched over, and she continued to rip into Alex's body like a butcher gone mad, laughing maniacally all the while even as Alex's life had long since faded out of this time loop…

 _Next Time: Shina's Despair_


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: A Duet of Despair**

Shina drags her feet along the ground as she makes her way through Kagutsuchi. Her head is hung, her eyes are lined with wrinkles at the bottom, and there was no trace of her usual smile or peppiness. It was like she had become an entirely different person. But after all she'd been through, one could not blame her for just simply giving up.

" _Hehehe…He'll never save you. You're both doomed to die…_ _ **forever**_ _…!"_

The girl winced, unable to get the haunting words of the Murakumo out of her mind. Her lips sunk down, pressing her chin into a blobby state while her brows weighed down her eyelids. She was more comparable to a robot than a human at this point, and it was clear from her sluggish movements and lack of focus that she had no iota of an idea where she was going.

Even with a lack of paying attention, Shina weakly murmured "Sorry…" to whoever she accidentally bumped into during her walks. However, it was very hard for her to look those same people in the eyes when she did so, as she found herself more a hazard to the other people in this world than anything else.

After her last encounter with Nu, Shina came to the realization that whatever process kept her cycling through these time loops also allowed those she got in contact with to retain some of their memories or those prior loops. With this city destined to be destroyed or the goals of others aligned for failure, there was simply no way she could allow herself to be near anyone for long. By now all she wanted to do was to seclude herself away from the world, and hopefully be forgotten.

Eventually, her wanderings led her to the part of Kagutsuchi known as Ronin-Gai, which had an oriental flare to it's buildings much like Orient Town, but with more of an emphasis on the ways of the shinobi. There were houses standing atop other houses going every which way, with bridges connecting between the sections of town like you would likely find in a Shogun's estate. There were also a few cherry blossom trees in this area, the gentle breeze scattering their petals to the wayside.

The people that wandered around this sector wore either flowery yukatas or generic ninja garb, the latter kind of people clearly acting as this place's guardians. But for now the place appeared to be wrapped in a festive splendor, as lanterns were spread across the buildings via thick string and some fireworks were being placed on the rooftops. Instead of being happy for them though, Shina could only feel pity at their unawareness of the coming calamity.

Shaking her head a couple times, she dragged herself across a small bridge and noticed a cherry blossom tree with plenty of shade underneath it that seemed to be hidden between a couple buildings. She went over to it, not out of conscious thought for it being a good spot, but because she was just hypnotically drawn to it. Once at the tree she slowly turned around and sat at the base of it, her head slumped over with chin laying atop her folded back knees while her arms wrapped around the legs with minimal effort bothered to be put into her pose.

From this part of Kagutsuchi she wouldn't be able to see the HQ, which would forever remain the biggest reminder of her futile fight. She briefly recalled trying to sit in the garden in the previous time loop in the slightest hopes a change in environment would dispel the despair. However, not only did that not come to pass, but in time the Kagutsuchi HQ was obliterated in a fiery cataclysm likely caused by Alex trying to destroy Nu.

 **And worst of all, one large chunk of debris flew out from the sky and killed her.**

Recalling that moment tightened Shina's muscles and made her curl up, looking even more pathetic and despondent than she did a moment ago. Then, she made the first conscious thought she had in a while, all for the purpose of hammering in the despair plaguing her precarious mind _"If even Alex can't stop Nu…then who can on this world…? I-Is this all our efforts have come down to…? To be trapped on this world…To die and die again…? Was the last year of my life just…futile?"_

Closing her eyes and shivering, Shina truly, TRULY believed there was no escape. If death was not even a release but simply a restart to this cruel cycle, then not even sitting around and starving would put an end to this madness.

Shina's heart was now filled with regret, and she felt as though it would've been better to have just stayed home and spent the rest of the time she could've with her sister. The guilt born of such regrets buried all other memories, no matter how joyous they were, deep down into her subconscious, and tears soon dripped through the crease between her eyelids as she whimpered pitifully "S-Sis…what…what do I do? What…CAN I do?"

As she wallowed in grief, a particular pair of people were in the midst of passing through this area. One was a young boy with light blond hair, blue eyes hidden behind a pair of jam jar glasses, and a high class London-style outfit consisting of long white sleeves with purple cuffs, purple shorts, a gentlemen's top hat, and a short purple cape attached to his chest by a metallic "X". Even with his age, the garb gave him the appearance of a classy performer.

Following close behind the boy was a doll that was over six feet tall, with a notably feminine appearance consisting of slender purple metallic legs and lithe arms topped with pointed, triangular shoulders and ending with a set of five razor sharp claws sticking out from each sleeve. Her main body was built to look like she was wearing a long dress with a skirt, while her face was paler than the whitest snow and devoid of life in her eyes. Her hair was blond, much like the boy's own, but with a sleeker shine and a stiff, metallic coating, while atop her head was an odd, arched purple hat.

As the two went in front of Shina, the doll suddenly stiffened and her body let out a dry creak as it turned towards her. The boy immediately stopped and looked back, looking up and asking in a calm but puzzled manner "Something the matter sis?" The doll didn't respond, yet it seemed 'her' and the boy were in tune with each other for as soon as he faced Shina he asked "Huh? Do you recognize this person?"

Shina stopped crying for a moment and slowly, hesitantly poked her head up past her kneecaps only to instantly freeze up in fright as she recognized the two in front of her. The boy was Carl Clover, a famous vigilante and puppeteer, and the doll was the Nox Nyctores Nirvana…Who also happened to hold the soul of Carl's older sister Ada inside.

The girl's pupils shrunk and she tensely grit her teeth as the doll slowly reached her claws out towards her. With her eyes trembling in fright, she pulled her head back as the claws seemed closer than they really were. Her vision blurred and for a second she believed that those claws would pierce through her head, and a paranoid perception painted those protrusions to look much more like Nu's own blades.

Sharply standing up, Shina drew her rapier and lashed it against Nirvana's claws to repel the doll back a few inches. Nirvana wobbled a little but quickly flung her body forward and swung her arms out in a curved fashion, taking upon a more aggravated stance. Shina shakily held her weapon out and yelled in a raspy, frightened manner "G-Get away from me! You…you don't want to be anywhere NEAR me!"

Carl then ran in front of Nirvana and swung his hands out, burrowing part of his face under the fold of his cape's collar while remarking in a flustered manner "What's the big idea? Why are you attacking my sister?!" As the cape settled upon his shoulders, the boy glared at Shina with an intensity very unbecoming of his age. Shina shook her head violently back and forth and spouted out angrily towards him "I-I'm telling you to get away from me! I'm…I'M DANGEROUS!" She then wiggled the rapier around some more, but all her efforts failed to intimidate Carl and instead caused him to grab the lip of his top hat while swinging the other hand out to guide the doll behind him.

"Ada, I won't let this lunatic woman harm you again. Lets take her down together!"

"N-No…wait!" Shina's pleas fell on the ears of a child too wrapped up in a desire to protect one he cared for, and Nirvana connected to those feelings on an almost symbiotic level as she immediately creaked her head down in a nod and then lashed her claws out towards Shina. She made a pitiful effort to roll to the right, and the claws ripped through her sleeve and cut into the skin before piercing through the tree like it was no thicker than a splinter.

Shina landed on the ground with a thud and her right arm roughly slid across the ground for a few moments while sandwiched against her hip. The three cuts the doll left bled out slowly, and Shina grimaced in pain from the sharp sensation digging itself into her nerves as she stood herself up. She barely swung her rapier out in time to deflect Carl drawing a small automaton from his cape to punch her.

" _Why why WHY?! …I-I-I just don't want anything to do with these guys anymore…! I-I can't let Carl end up like Litchi or N-Noel…!"_ As much as it pained her to do so, Shina bit her lower lip and turned tail to run as far away from Carl and Nirvana as she could. Carl widened his eyes and went "H-Huh?! Wait!" before hopping up into Nirvana's cradled arms and gesturing his arm forward while declaring "After her Ada!"

The doll set off at speeds so fast it was like she was gliding off the ground, and Carl gripped his top hat tightly to avoid having it fall off. Shina glanced over her shoulder as she heard the duo rapidly approaching. With the blood dripping from her limping arm it was hard to keep running and soon Nirvana threw Carl over her head and then curled it's claws into a fist that was lunged straight at Shina's chest.

She raised her raised her rapier again but the limber doll had more strength than one would expect and managed to blow Shina back five feet while cracking the bones in her wrist. Shina's feet then ended up on a green cloth flag that Carl had drawn out from his cape, and with a flick of the wrist the boy pulled the flag up and managed to throw the girl off-balance as though she was light as a feather.

Shina fell onto the back of her head hard enough to jolt her mind with a painful throb, and with the rest of her body lurching upward she gave out a disheartened gasp before laying flat against the ground with arms and legs spread out in a disorderly manner. Her eyes gazed up at Carl and Nirvana, both of whom were hunched over her. The boy's glare was eerily calm in this moment, and he crossed his hands before his chest while remarking "Sis…why did you recognize this person?"

Nirvana tilted her head to the right, pivoted on a joint that barely resembled a neck, and Carl closed his eyes and murmured "What…? Dark War? Aura? I don't get any of that Ada…" When he opened his eyes again he put on an innocent smile and said "Well, no point in worrying about it I guess...Come on sis, just knock this lunatic out and we can get a move on!"

The doll stood upright and lurched back, the weight of her arm slowing the ascent of the fist she clenched tightly above her head. As it started to come down Shina clenched her eyes tightly shut and was ready to cry again.

" _I-It's just not fair…! Why did this have to happen to ME?! A-All I wanted was to save my people…"_

Reflecting on the past reminded Shina of other trying times she had. Back in Sancturia, she was always prone to helping people however she could, even if perhaps too much work had been pushed upon her by those wanting to take advantage of her kindness. Yet in spite of all the work she had to do, she prevailed through it all and still could return home with a smile for her sister.

All the turmoil of the past that Shina once thought heavily on now seemed like nothing more than child's play compared to what she's gone through now. And yet, even then the journeys across the three worlds prior were nothing compared towhat she's been forced to endure now. She was not prepared for these time loops, and even if he had forewarning of these events nothing Alex could've POSSIBLY trained her for could've made someone of her nature ready for the tragedies that are born of such a calamitous cycle.

To someone like Shina, who cherishes memories the most, being forgotten was simply the worst feeling in the universe. But by it's very nature, the way the time loops were crafted now meant that those she had encountered would not forget her, right? Yes, but not in a manner that Shina could bring herself to think about.

" _Does Noel hate me for not being able to save her twice…?"_

Nirvana's fist was halfway to making contact by the time these tremulous thoughts echoed in her mind.

"… _Could Litchi ever forgive me for not being there to help her with Arakune again…?"_

No, it was not those two thoughts that started to break Shina's mind. It was when perceiving what Alex's possible opinion on the matter might be that things started to hurt the most. She saw him staring down at her, arms crossed and his usually aloof demeanor at the forefront. He shook his head a couple times and remarked with a scoff _"I guess I was wrong…Even_ _ **I**_ _can't help you. I mean LOOK at you…Losing to CARL of all people? …Guess I'll just have to do this on my own…"_

With a tired sigh, the boy put his hands in his pockets and turned away, walking into the foggy darkness that bound itself to her thoughts. Shina tried to reach out, pleading to him not to give up, but her voice was unheard. When Alex was gone, Shina's mind cried out only one thing…

" _I-I just wanted to prove that I could it on my own…T-That…I deserved to be at your side as a friend and not just some f-f-foolish kid…!"_

All at once at that moment, despair flushed over Shina's mind like a tidal wave and made her snap. She cracked her eyes open with the doll's fist mere inches from her face and let out a rigid screamalong with a burst of flaky aura that repelled Nirvana and knocked Carl onto his back. The burst also had the secondary effect of sending a heavy gale flying through the city, blowing window shutters open or closed and setting loose some of the lanterns from their strings.

As Shina got to her fight and shakily held her rapier before her waist, some of those lanterns crashed and released their embers upon the ground around her, setting fire to the littler flowers planted in the stony streets. She held her head up and had a firm, frenzied glare focused entirely on Carl as the boy wobbled to his feet and murmured "W-What's going on here?!"

Shina slowly walked towards Carl while her head was hunched forward and a scowl crossed her face, her hair messily spread around it. Just maybe a _**little**_ unhinged, Shina slowly told the boy "I-I said to get away from me…B-But you just wouldn't LISTEN would ya?! Well maybe you'll remember this spanking I'm about to give you in the next time loop, ya stupid brat!"

As Shina swung her rapier at Carl, the boy winced his eyelids shut and screamed "A-ADA, HELP!" but the doll was nowhere near fast enough to get around to defend him in time.

" **CLANK!"**

A loud noise rang across all of Ronin-Gai, and a triumphant cheer filled the sky as many people looked out their windows and from across the street at their hero come to save them from the chaos going outside. Who is that, you may ask? Why, who else could earn so many cheers than the proud if somewhat boisterous defender of justice himself, Bang Shishigami!

The muscular man stood between Carl and Shina and used one of his gauntlets to block her rapier. He stood diagonally before them, looking astoundingly heroic as a gale fluttered his scarf behind his scruffy face and he cracked a positively charming smile. On any other day, Shina would be endeared by the man's spirit, but in her broken state of mind she instead cursed him out in her head _"No no no! Stop sending more of these people at me!"_

Shina ground her rapier along Bang's gauntlet as she pulled it away and hopped back, while Bang stood up in front of Carl as he was in the middle of calling Nirvana back to him. Laying his fists on his hips while looking straight at the unhinged Shina, Bang proclaimed with all his heart "Wherever there is a cry for help, whether it be from man, woman or child, I shall answer their call! For I am the man hailed by the heavens, earth and it's people! The one and only Bang Shishigami has arrived!"

The man broke into a merry laughter immediately afterwards, which was somehow NOT drowned out by the people cheering his name. Shina wobbled back a little bit then swung her head around, exclaiming defiantly to the man "G-Get away from me! I-If you stay near me you'll only feel despair!" She then held her head straight and gripped her rapier tightly in both hands before pitifully screaming "I…I just want to be left alone!"

Bang raised his brows and remarked firmly "And yet you would attack a poor, innocent child in the middle of the streets?" He then swung his left fist before his pecs and declared with a lot of bluster "There are two things in this world I cannot stand! Lies, and evil, and lies, and BELL PEPPERS!"

Nirvana blankly stared at the man from behind, while Carl kept his eyes wide in disbelief and murmured "Y-You're right Ada, that WAS three things…"

Shina stamped her feet on the ground a couple times and exclaimed "W-Well there's THREE things I can't stand too! Evil, lies…AND STUPID BUTT-FACED OLD MEN LIKE YOU!" Bang's body jerked back as though taking an ogre's punch to the chest, and he crossed an arm before it while remarking "H-How rude of you! I'll have you know I'm as young and spry as a spring chicken!"

"I don't care if you are as young as a chickadee, you're still stupid either way! Now leave me alone, I'm not gonna give ya another warning!"

Bang composed himself and laid his fists back on his hips, standing tall as he remarked to Shina "I am not one to simply abide to the threats of an evil-doer, especially one who would so viciously attack a young child!" Shina widened her eyes and exclaimed "It was Nirvana that attacked me first!"

Carl chimed in angrily "Her name's not Nirvana, it's Ada, ADA! And YOU attacked us first!" Shina glanced to the aside and grit his teeth upon remembering that she did actually do that. Shaking her head a couple times she tried to steadily walk backwards away from the two while remarking "I-It doesn't matter who attacked first! I don't want to deal with ANY of you anymore! It's not right…it's not right that you have to remember the despair of other timelines!"

Bang quietly looked at the girl as she lashed out uncontrollably at him, but then quickly exclaimed "You need to calm down!" Shina lashed her rapier out and whipped Bang's chest with a wavy strand of aura, causing him to flinch. The ninja winced an eye shut and remarked "Guh…! I-I see…You have no intention of standing down! Very well…you give me no other choice! You may be a woman, but I will not let prejudices blind my ways of justice! Come forth, Disciple #1, and help me defend these lands together!"

As Bang swung his right fist forward to call forth his supposed 'disciple', but there was only an awkward glare thrown his way from both Shina and Carl as no one arrived. Bang forced a smile and his eyes swung left and right before he stood tall and let out a cough, remarking in a couple decibels lower tone "Ummm…Disciple #1? Hello? I…I was sure you were following me…"

Shina and Carl glanced over their shoulder, both in the same mindset of believing that they should just run off while they still had a chance. However, the three were soon assaulted by a very loud, childish snoring coming from one of the nearby rooftops. Bang closed his eyes for a moment and sighed, then spun towards the roof to the right and brandished his finger upward, exclaiming with some degree of disappointment "DISCIPLE #1, A GOOD DEFENDER OF JUSTICE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO FALL ASLEEP BEFORE THEIR INTRODUCTION!"

He had to nearly make his voice hoarse screaming just to make sure that the person atop the roof would actually hear him. A couple lip smacks echoed off the roof before the person he addressed woke up and lifted their upper body to rub their black, hooded face with a cat-paw like sleeve.

"Meeeew…Just a few more seconds Scruffy Man…" It was Taokaka who was resting on some random person's roof. Shina realizes that it couldn't really have been anyone else so innocent but bold enough to do such a thing, but didn't want to admit it sooner out of hopes that maybe another person wouldn't be added to the pile of people she had run into this loop. Worst of all with this one though, it was someone she had already met before. But considering how…distracted Tao tends to be, it was likely she-

"Hey! It's Boobie Jr.!"

Tao's sudden blurting of that shattered Shina's already minimal hopes to dust, then stamped THAT out to nothingness. Tao stood up, her pure red dots for eyes glaring straight down at Shina's chest, and with one energetic bounce she flew straight at them with paws outstretched. Shina simply did what happened the last time she had encountered the Kaka and lightly blasted them in the face with an aura ball, which sent them tumbling back along the ground until their head rested at Bang's feet.

With a fanged frown, Tao blurted out playfully "Ow ow owie! That hurt!" while Bang looked down at her and asked "You…you recognize this person, Disciple #1?"

"NO! No she DOES NOT!" Shina swung her arms out a couple times and stayed insistent on that fact while Tao got to her feet and laid a paw on her chin, tilting her head as her mouth turned into a miniscule dot and she murmured "Does Tao recognize Boobie Jr…? Meow, Tao don't know for sure!"

"…But you've given her a nickname…" Bang murmured, just as puzzled if not more so than his disciple. The man scratched the side of his head for a few seconds before shrugging and placing his fists on his hips, remarking with his brand of hot-bloodedness "Ah-ha! This must be simply a spell placed upon us by that vixen to confuse us! Nice try, but I am too SMART to fall for your tricks!"

Shina swung her arms out as far as she could and begged to the three "It's not a trick! Please please PLEASE listen to me! Tao's proof enough that you can remember! If it's not enough to believe her, then find a person named Noel and ask her…Or ask Miss Litchi…! One of them would probably remember me! B-But you don't want to suffer the same fate as them, so please…Just stay away from me!"

At the end of her pleas she laid a hand on her chest and could barely muster the strength to even look distressed. She also didn't seem to realize that her body was slowly getting weaker by the second because of the untreated wounds on her arm. Bang raised his brows and remarked "Wait…you know Miss Litchi? H-Ha…! No, you must simply be reading my mind! I shall not fall for your tricks!"

Bang then glanced over his left shoulder at Carl, remarking to him "Fear not child, this wicked witch shall not harm you any longer!" The boy glared up at the man in turn and exclaimed "Will you stop calling me a child?! And I never asked for you to help me in the first place!"

Nirvana then suddenly lashed her claws out towards Bang, who turned around and raised his gauntlets as the claws spun like drills against it, pushing the man closer to Tao's backside before it stopped. Carl then swung his arms towards Bang like he was dictating the puppet's movements, remarking to the man with a bitter scowl "Adults like you…always trying to tell me what I need! Ada's the only person I need to listen to! The rest of you can just go away!"

Bang grit his teeth and remarked "Oh dear, this seems to have escalated quickly…! Tao, it seems we'll have to split our targets here! But don't harm them too much…they just need a little sense knocked back into them." Tao's mouth turned into a 'v' while she replied "Huh? Tao doesn't get what your saying Scruffy Man, but Tao'd be more than happy to play with Boobie Jr.!"

With a more playful demeanor, Tao bat her paws at the air and said "When Tao comes a knockin', knockers are sure to get knocked!" Shina weakly lowered her eyelids and slowly said "P-Please…I just…just want to be…" Her legs gave way, and her body started to collapse forward as Tao pounced straight at her. Her eyelids closing, Shina muttered one last word "…alone…" and fell unconscious on the ground, with Tao flying right over her head and immediately using cat-like grace to turn around upon landing.

"H-Huh…? Hey Scruffy Man, something's wrong with…" Tao's voice went quiet as even Shina's hearing stopped working, and she drifted into an unwelcoming but silent rest…

 _Next Time: A Welcoming Heart…_


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: A Hero's Heart**

 _An indeterminate amount of time later…_

Shina sharply awoke from her sleep with a swift opening of her eyelids. She gave a couple gasps and her chest heaved heavily a few times more. Her body felt cold for just a moment, like she had just been brought back from the brink of death itself. However, the immediate thing she noticed was that she wasn't in the forest, but rather underneath a roof made of wood.

Slowly but heavily breathing to compose herself, Shina shifted her body around a little. The first things she noticed was that her right arm was weighed down by a thick and warm blanket, and that the other one was a little numb at the moment. Slowly pulling herself upright with a groan, her kneecaps knocked against a solid object and piqued her curiosity.

"…H-Huh…?" With a dull murmur, she peered over to find a small tray suspended over her legs by squared, wooden arches. On it was a bowl of steaming hot noodles decorated with chipped peanuts, a variety of spices, and a few pieces of sauced covered shrimp. Aside it was a small ceramic bowl filled with the whitest rice this side of the valley, and a pair of chopsticks were laid delicately aside it.

"…" Shina dryly stared at the food presented before her. It had a vibrant smell to it, to be sure, but she could simply not muster the care to reach for it. Slowly pulling her legs back without disrupting the tray, Shina got her upper body erected and glanced around the room.

There were wall panels with a few dragon and flower symbols painted on them, and they used a pure Oriental style in how they were presented. The wall to the right was lined with orange, netted shutters while the left was open, allowing a pristine view of the Ronin-Gai part of Kagutsuchi past the red wood balcony. A few cherry blossom petals blew in on a gentle breeze, a couple of them brushing against the side of Shina's face and making her retreat a little with a somewhat irritated groan.

She followed the descent of those blossoms to the right arm, catching a glimpse of the set of bandages that had been wrapped around where she had been scarred. The blood was gone, and the pain there had subsided. Just to be sure on that though, she raised her left arm to the bandages and squeezed around where the wounds were.

"Kkk…!" There was a moment where her skin felt sore, but not a single drop of blood pushed out. She quickly let go and flopped the hand atop her waist, remarking slowly "…Someone…healed me…?"

Lowering her head until the chin was atop her chest, Shina pondered somberly "But…why?" The shutters then slipped open, and a certain bombastic ninja walked into the room while remarking joyously "Ah, so you've finally awoken!"

Shina swerved her head to the right as slow as molasses, finding her eyes even with Bang's waist as he took a couple steps forward and then sat down with feet pressed together and hands atop his knees. Now that his eyes were looked straight at Shina's own, the girl turned her head away and continued to stare at the top of the blanket.

With a bright smile, Bang inquired "How are you feeling? I was a bit worried when you suddenly collapsed like that." Shina quickly but quietly asked "…Why? Weren't you trying to stop me?"

Bang raised his brows and remarked with a maturity unexpected of one of such a boisterous nature "Be that as it may, I could not simply stand idly by and let even an enemy bleed to death on the streets. If you don't mind me asking, where did you get those wounds?"

Shina slowly blinked a couple times and then clenched her eyelids shut, remarking drably "It was…Nirvana." Bang cracked a jolly laugh and admitted "Ah, so it was that strange doll after all…! Yes, her protrusions are quite…sharp, aren't they?"

His jovial attitude was something Shina wished she could relish in herself, but she just couldn't muster the energy to be anything more than apathetic to the whole situation. Even sensing that, Bang continued to keep his head up and treat Shina as gently as he could.

"Anyways, we managed to stop the bleeding with the help of our special Ikaruga brand ointment. I would suggest not moving too much though, otherwise it might open again."

"…" Shina nudged her head forward just a little bit to cover her face with her hair, remarking in a sincere tone "You don't have to worry about that…"

Bang blinked a couple times then closed his eyes with a chipper smile, remarking with understanding towards her situation "Alright, you're welcome to take as much time as you need. If you are feeling hungry, I personally prepared this hot bowl of noodles and rice for you. It's a meal so magnificent, Lord Tenjo himself gave it his highest praise!"

With a bellowing exclamation filled with pride, Bang pounded his chest a couple times then rose to his feet, remarking to Shina calmly "I shall check up on you in a bit. I must attend to my trusted Disciple!" Instead of going out the shutters, however, Bang walked around the bed and got atop the balcony, leaping out into the peaceful city while using a parachute to glide around.

Shina then looked back at the food in front of her, staring at it while slowly blinking a couple times. The spices and the shrimp exuded their scents in a perfect blend that couldn't help but slip itself into her nostrils, igniting a hunger in her gullet that would otherwise be dormant. She slowly raised her hand up towards the bowl but paused moments in, curling the fingers inward and nestling it atop her waist.

"I…don't need to eat…" She shook her head with a timid puckering of her lips, then glanced back at the comfy pillow behind her and thought _"Might as well just lie down and wait for this loop to end…"_

But as she started to lean back her stomach rudely gurgled out at her, with the acids bubbling against the walls of her gut with a mild tingling sensation. She gripped the edge of the blanket tightly and looked at the food one more time. Even depressed as she was, her body's natural instincts to feed itself overpowered those emotions.

In a few seconds, Shina swung her arms up to the sides of the tray, pulling it in while mumbling "…Curse this growing body of mine…" When the tray was right in front of her, she reached for the chopsticks and went for the noodles. Experience with fast food at home had given her expertise and finesse with handling these utensils.

She pinched a few noodles between the two sticks, but they quickly slipped out due to her pinching too hard. "Shoot…" She murmured before trying again. This time they slipped out because she didn't try hard enough. The chopsticks were tensely crossed together while Shina bit her lower lip.

"…Well, I guess I haven't done this in a while…"

With a lofty sigh, Shina tried one more time at the noodles and succeeded at keeping them on the chopsticks. Then she brought them to her mouth and slowly slurped them past the lips. The moment those noodles touched her taste buds, she was overwhelmed by a flood of sensations. The spices had to have been picked straight out of a garden, as they were pure and powerful in their taste. The noodle chewy but perfectly absorbed the flavors of the spices and juices from the shrimp, creating a unique taste that could not be replicated any other way. The overall taste was mild in spiciness and warm in temperature, but the most important ingredient of all was something that only an Aurian like Shina could feel.

The noodles had been made with a lot of heart. Bang Shishigami had put everything he had into making sure that these noodles were the best noodles ever. His burning spirit, his dedication, his kindness…all of that mixed into each individual noodle.

The kindness in particular carried a nostalgic vibe for Shina, as she began to remember eating such foods with her family. In fact, a similar meal was the last dinner the two had shared…

With the chopsticks stuck in her mouth, Shina closed her eyes and cracked a tiny smile, sniffling as a couple tear drops trickled out between the eyelids.

"Oh! My apologies…Had I known you had a low tolerance for spicy foods, I would've removed the spicier stuff right away!"

Shina widened her eyes open and nearly choked on the noodles she suddenly slurped down. Pulling the chopsticks from her mouth and hacking a few times, she garnered concern from the same person who surprised her, Bang, and he quickly hopped down from the balcony and approached her with an extended hand.

"O-Oh no! Quick, do you need me to perform the Heimlich?!" Shina swung her left arm out and shook her head, cupping the other hand around her neck until her esophagus digested the food safely. She then slowly laid her hands on the waist and turned her watery eyes towards Bang, remarking in a raspy, puzzled tone "Y-You came back quickly…"

The man placed his hands on his hips and remarked "Quickly? It has already been fifteen minutes…" Shina blinked once then looked down at the tray, murmuring in surprise "O-Oh…"

Bang cracked a jolly smile and remarked "I'm glad to see you are enjoying the meal otherwise though! It is a Bang Shishigami specialty, cooked from the fires of my very soul!" Shina closed her eyes and whispered "I-It's not that it was spicy, but…"

She shook her head quickly three times and then hung her head. Bang sat himself down in the same pose as before, with Shina tilting her head his way and asking "…Mr. Bang, why are you being so nice? Weren't you going on about stopping me in the name of justice?"

Bang looked at her oddly for a few seconds, and Shina interpreted it as a sign that he was offended by her questioning his hospitality. She looked away from him, but would end up missing out on the man letting out a hearty laugh.

"Haha! Justice takes on many forms young lady! It's not merely about punching evil-doers in the face. Sometimes, an act of justice simply requires one to extend a helping hand to someone in need." Bang spoke calmly, almost sounding like a sage. It was such a shocking contrast to the man who screamed like a hero out of a Shonen anime that it left Shina rather speechless, even if she knew of this hidden side of him.

Bang cracked a gentle grin and remarked a moment after "And despite my earlier judgments, even I began to see that there was something disturbing you. So I took it upon myself to patch you up, and perhaps see if I could offer some of my worldly wisdom to you!"

"I don't need it…"

"Huh?"

Shina swung her head back to face him and got a little louder as she repeated herself "I don't need it!" Bang blinked twice and Shina felt quite embarrassed, a blush appearing in her cheeks as she looked at her shoulder and remarked "…I-I'm sorry, but…What's happening with me is not something you could understand."

"I'm willing to try only if you are." Bang said, clearly showing respect towards the girl's feelings. He sat there for just a little bit as Shina was silent and contemplative. As he started to rise to his feet, Shina finished considering all of his hospitality so far by biting her lower lip and spinning her head around to exclaim "Wait!"

Bang paused and then went back down, listening in as Shina twiddled a few strands of hair in her fingers and murmured uncertainly "H-How can I word this for you…Ooooh…" She pinched that hair between her fingers and then looked at the ninja, waving the hand out as she asked "Have you ever tried to do something multiple times, only to keep failing no matter what you do?"

The ninja closed his eyes for a few seconds and then slapped his right hand atop his kneecap before standing up, remarking in an inviting tone "Let me show you something. Try and stand up if you can." As Bang turned around towards the balcony, Shina blinked and then gently nudged the tray away from her waist until she had enough room to bend her knees up and use her left arm to push herself onto her feet.

Feeling a little weak, she slowly trudged over to the balcony and laid her arms down across the stomach. Bang folded his arms and stood proudly towards the city, his scarf fluttering in the breeze as he began to explain "Not too long, we of Ikaruga fought a war against the NOL. It was a horrible, gruesome fight, with many casualties on both sides…However, the deaths in the Ikaruga Federation far outweighed the ones inflicted upon the NOL."

Bang closed his eyes, a somber recollection coursing through his mind as he continued "We tried our hardest to win, but the enemy was simply too strong…Eventually, the war ended with the death of our dear Lord Tenjo at the hands of that monster Jin Kisaragi…!" The man's teeth bit down into a scowl for just a moment, but he quickly let out a sigh and tried to return to a zen state of mind "…And in turn, Ikaruga was destroyed, and those of us who survived were forced to migrate to a new land. Our journey eventually brought us here, to Kagutsuchi, where we have lived ever since."

Shina turned her head and raised a brow, asking him dishearteningly "But you lost, didn't you?" Bang nodded once before replying with a hint of regret "We lost the war, but I would not say we've lost the fight…After all, take a look around you."

Bang opened his eyes and smiled as proudly as he could, with Shina looking towards the city to see things through his eyes. There were people running about, enjoying their life to the fullest. It was as if the terrors of war were but a far distant memory. When Bang was sure she had seen enough, he remarked "Yes, we may have lost our original home, but we eventually found a new one…And though many lives were lost, a great deal more still live to carry on the flame of hope in their hearts."

As Shina looked at him, the ninja faced her in turn and remarked with a grin "So long as our hearts beat against the skin of our chests, then we can always live to fight another day."

"…Even though you're fighting against impossible odds?"

"Hahaha, well yes…You might be right." Bang's humbleness was appreciated, even if a bit confusing. The man then turned his head towards the city and continued "But the way I see it, you may fall down many times…But so long as you believe with all your heart that what you're doing is right, then you shall always be standing more times than you've fallen."

Shina winced a little and lowered her head. She could remember clearly that Alex had said something similar to that once before, and in turn she could recall the vow made to live up to his beliefs that she could succeed. And yet despite that, she was once again wallowing in sadness, repeating a cycle more tiresome than the time loops.

"…Mr. Bang, d-don't you…regret the people around you continuing to fight this battle, even if it might lead to them falling into despair…or worse, dying?"

Bang closed his eyes, and for the first time this conversation he had to actually think about the response for a bit. He laid his hands on his hips and after ten seconds had passed he replied "The hearts of all those who represent the iron will of Ikaruga beat as one. Whether they choose to fight or choose to continue living in peace, I shall respect and be proud of their wishes all the same. Sure, I shall mourn anyone who dies in our continued fight against the NOL, but even in death the fire in their soul shall be imparted into us all."

Partway through his prideful speech, Shina glanced away and murmured "Their hearts beat as one…" She laid a hand on her chest and remembered something else _"I…I said something similar. When I first activated the Valkyrie Drive, I believe…"_

She remembered that the hopes of all her people rested in her hands, and a reminder of such a burden was perhaps the truest slap in the face Shina needed. With her eyes widening as a shock jittered through her body like a set of centipede legs crawling on her skin, she then pulled her hand away and stared at it, murmuring with confusion "What…what am I doing…? Why am I giving up so easily…when I'm still alive?"

Bang looked at the back of her head and remarked "Is something the matter?" A shocked Shina spun around and wanted to speak to him, but had to quickly spit out some hair that flew into her mouth first. With a somewhat embarrassed expression, she bowed her head towards the man and told him "Umm…thank you for answering my questions, Mr. Bang."

The ninja smiled proud and said "I am more than glad to off the Ikaruga brand of hospitality to a guest! You're more than welcome, uhhh…" Bang paused and cracked a somewhat awkward grin. Rubbing his chin a little bit, he was embarrassed to me admit "For all my talks of hospitality, I haven't even gotten your name."

"O-Oh, so I haven't…" Shina murmured, just a little bit of her energy returned to her voice. She looked Bang in the eyes and held her hand out, saying to him "I'm Shina, Shina Aurora." He shook her hand as hard as he could, telling her quite honestly "Well Ms. Aurora, let it be known that any friend of Ms. Litchi's is a friend of mine!"

Shina widened her eyes and went "Wait huh…?" before quickly remembering that she did happen to blurt that out earlier. She then pulled her hand away and shook it a couple times before mentioning "W-Wait a second, that's…not exactly true…N-Not this time anyways…"

Bang furrowed his brow in a puzzled manner and replied "Huh? Whatever do you mean?" Shina looked away for a moment and tapped her fingers against her neck to think about that.

" _Well…m-maybe he'd understand now?"_

As she turned her head to look at him with mouth open, the shutters suddenly flung open and one of Bang's subordinates was on their knee with a message "Sir! W-We need your assistance…The boy has woken up and well…" Another subordinate went flying through the air behind him like a sack of bricks until he crashed through the door nearby. The first subordinate then lowered his head and whispered meekly "P-Please just come help…"

Bang folded his arms together and remarked "Ah…I should've known this would happen. Alright, I'll be right there!" The ninja dashed forward until he was in the hall, while Shina held her hand out and softly asked "Boy? Did you bring Carl here too…?"

The ninja glanced back and said "Why yes, I did." Shina lowered her brows and questioned his decision making drably "…And Nirvana too?" Bang chuckled a little bit before admitting "Well you see…"

Another subordinate flew straight at Bang, but with his reflexes agile as ever he quickly plucked him out of the air and set him softly on the ground. However, the man was as stiff as a tree. The ninja planted his fists on his hips and remarked "The doll followed us in here all on it's own…It's a rather unnerving doll, but it seems very attached to it's owner…I'll go see what the problem is, you wait right here."

Bang sprinted down the hall, but Shina was not too far behind as she moved at a cautious pace. She leaned her head to the left to peek around the corner, and her eyes were immediately assaulted by a set of sparks flying out from Bang's gauntlets as he blocked Nirvana's claws. The doll was hunched over with arm swung beside it's face, while Carl stood atop the bed behind her while weakly clenching the side of his hip.

"L-Let me go…!" Carl screamed through the grinding of metal between Bang and Nirvana. The ninja held his ground and remarked "You need to calm down. All this excitement is just going to re-open your wounds!"

"I didn't ask to be brought here! I want OUT!" But Carl simply did not want to calm down. He was in a state of panic and fear, and Nirvana resonated with that negativity and got far more aggressive towards Bang. She spun her body around and limped her arms above the head, then with the force of one ton weights she lashed her claws repeatedly against Bang's crossed gauntlets.

"Urkkk…! Hang on, I'm not trying to harm you!" Bang exclaimed with sheer honesty, but Carl just swung his head forward and screamed at the top of his lungs "LIAR! All…all you adults are the same! You're just trying to trick me!"

His fear was deep-rooted in events of the past. Carl didn't exactly have the most…wonderful childhood, to put it lightly, and it was mostly because of what his father had done to his big sister. Specifically, putting her soul inside of Nirvana.

Shina looked at Carl from afar while his turmoil left his aura raging unevenly around his body. The boy was in pain, both physically and mentally, and his aura cried for help even if his voice screamed for the world to leave him be. Bang was trying his hardest, for sure, but Nirvana just couldn't help but interpret the man's energetic nature as harmful to the boy.

After staring at him for a little while longer, Shina's body started to move on it's own. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, trying to project a calm and gentle aura. As she got past Bang, he looked at her and exclaimed "Wait! It's dangerous!" but she just kept going on, with Nirvana turning her head ready to swing an arm out for attack. But as the claws got within inches of Shina's face, the doll lurched to a stop and let her walk past.

Once at the edge of the bed, Shina looked down at Carl and cracked a smile for him, then she laid her legs on the bed and looked him in the eyes. Carl's pupils shrank and he freaked out even more "Y-You're the one who attacked Ada! I…I don't want you near me, LEAVE ME ALONE!" However, with that yell he ended up lurching forward with a red splotch forming on the left side of his clothes.

He grit his teeth and dropped to his knees, with his eyes barely able to stay open. Shina then extended a hand towards the open wound, exuding a bit of aura from the palm as she did so. Bang looked on in surprise as Carl seemed to settle down for a little and let Shina apply the aura to his wound.

"H…huh? What are you…" Carl scowled in pain as the aura pushed through the fibers of his clothes and moved the blood back into his body. Then, the aura laid itself out over the wound and accelerated it's healing. Carl panted a little and didn't really make any other noise, while Shina gently told him "None of us want you to bleed out, alright? Just stay calm and you'll feel better soon."

She didn't coddle him like a child when she spoke, and ensured that he would be as comfortable as possible until she was done healing. Nirvana turned around and held her arms at the hips, staring down at Carl patiently. Bang leaned past the doll to catch a glimpse of what was happening, but he was at a loss when it came to Shina's power.

"I've never seen anything like this before…" He murmured.

After a few more seconds Shina pulled her hand back and sent in a quiet, chipper tone "There you go! Try moving around now." She backed off and stood up, ending up leaning against the front of Nirvana's body. Her cold steel touching against her arms caused the girl to glance back and murmur "Oh, hi there!"

Nirvana didn't pay her any heed with her eyes and instead gently brushed her aside so she could approach Carl at the bedside. Carl slowly rose to his feet and moved his hand away from his hip. He wiggled his arm around and seemed to be able to do so without straining himself in the slightest. With a shocked but somewhat jolly expression, the boy looked up at Nirvana and said "L-Look sis, I'm all better now!" Nirvana stared down at him for a few seconds before he dulled his excitement a bit and murmured "Huh…? That's the aura you were talking about before sis?"

Bang raised his brows and murmured to himself "Aura…? Ah, I see…" while Carl turned to looked at Shina, asking her with a tense grit of his teeth "I-I don't understand…Why did you help me? W-Weren't you trying to hurt Ada…?"

Shina closed her eyes, cracked an uneven grin, and scratched the side of her face with one finger before replying "U-Uhh…" Even though she didn't want to treat him like a child, there was really no way to word a response to that without coming across like she was doing just that, so instead she swiftly faced Bang and told him "Hey, you can take over from here now!"

"Huh huh what? Oh, right!" Bang was frazzled at first, but he quickly put his hands aside his hips and bent down in front of the bed. Nirvana lurched her arms up defensively but the ninja simply looked her in the eyes and admitted "Do not worry. I wish no harm upon the young master."

That seemed enough to pacify the doll, as she laid her arms back and let Bang speak directly to Carl "First off, I must apologize for the actions of my disciple. She has quite a ways to go when it comes to the art of being a vigilante." Carl avoided eye contact with the man and plopped himself down onto his rear, gritting his teeth while rubbing the healed part of his hip. It didn't take much on Shina's end to realize that Tao must've gotten too rowdy with the boy.

"You must be a vigilante yourself, judging by those wanted posters I found in your coat." Bang remarked, his tone carrying a little bit of concern amongst a flood of surprise. Carl swung his head at him and exclaimed "Y-You checked my pockets?!"

Bang held his hands up and defended himself hastily "N-Now hang on! They just slipped out when my disciple clawed your coat! Honest!" Carl bit his lower lip and mumbled hesitantly "I-I don't believe you…"

"You're welcome to do whatever you want, I won't stop you. I am simply impressed more than anything that someone your age has chosen to become a vigilante."

Carl widened his eyes into a fierce glare while Shina bit her teeth together and let out a worried hiss, but Bang quickly salvaged the situation by mentioning "That was not meant to demean you. To willingly choose such a dangerous profession takes both maturity and a whole lot of guts!"

"…Huh?" Carl murmured. Bang closed his eyes and exclaimed "But there are still many things you need to learn when it comes to being a vigilante! One of them is to not pick fights with your fellow vigilantes!"

Carl continued to remain silent. It seemed as though he was at a complete loss of words when it came to Bang's behavior towards him. The ninja remarked a moment later "But that can easily be amended! If you are willing, then I would be more than happy to take you under my wing as my second disciple!"

"W-W-What?! Y-Your…disciple?!" That was the comment that made Carl break out in shock, followed by him clenching his hands together before his chest and meekly stating "I-I don't believe you! You're just trying to trick me!"

"I assure you I'm not. But that is ultimately up to you to decide. If you want to trust me, you can…If you want to leave, I will not stop you. Just make sure you be careful out there." Bang closed his eyes and decided to let the boy digest his request for a little bit. Carl gripped the sides of his arms and cuddled himself tightly, looking Nirvana in the eyes while asking "Ada…what should I do?"

The doll nudged her head down an inch and looked him in the eyes. Shina saw the indecisiveness in his eyes and could empathize with it, but didn't feel as though it would be right for her to offer advice at this point.

" _This is something…he has to figure out on her own."_ Shina then closed her eyes and turned around, thinking that maybe she'd be better off heading off now. However, another of Bang's subordinates had rushed to the door and bent down, greatly out of breath.

"S-Sir…!" His voice was dry and a little scared, and Bang quickly turned around and got to his feet before asking "What's wrong? You look as though you have seen a ghost!"

The subordinate coughed and replied in a raspy voice "W-Worse than that…! Ronin-Gai is…I-is under attack!" Bang's heart skipped a beat and he swung his right fist forward, proclaiming in the name of justice "Under attack?! Who is the vile fiend that would dare intrude upon this proud city?!"

As the subordinate raised his head, Shina would find herself greatly surprised and worried to hear a certain name entering her ears once more "I-It's that strange monster…! The one the posters call…A-Arakune!"

Shina widened her eyes and with a blank expression forward could only think _"O-Oh no…"_

 _Next Time: The Vigilantes of Kagutsuchi_


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: What the Heart Wants**

The news of Arakune's arrival in Ronin-Gai set Bang's fires of justice ablaze, and he proclaimed to his subordinate with all his vigor "Ah, so that fiend has come to soil the grounds of our people, has he?!" He swung a fist forward and his face turned fierce with determination.

"Let it be known that there are three things that Bang Shishigami CANNOT stand! Lies, evil, lies, evil AND-"

"S-Sir, I think we all know about your distaste for bell peppers by now. Our men are literally being swamped by that monster, c-can you please save us…?" The subordinate's meekness did manage to break through the angered proclamations of his boss, and Bang quickly planted his fists on his hips and let out a haggy cough before replying "Y-You're right! This is a matter of grave importance! My personal agenda against bell peppers can wait!"

He then gestured an arm out towards his subordinate and asked "Now, where is that beastly blob?!" The subordinate replied post-haste "L-Last I saw, he was on the south end of this sector!"

"South? …Good, most of the town's people are still safe. Good, then I'm off! May the winds of justice be my guide!" Bang shuffled his feet along the ground to sprint past his subordinate so he can leap over the balcony in the hallway beyond. Shina tried to stop him with a swift "W-Wait a second Mr. Bang!" but his mind was so stuffed to the brim with hot-bloodedness that those words simply bounced off of him.

Shina lowered her hand and murmured between lightly gritted teeth "Mmmm, what should I do?" She hadn't ever considered the possibility of running into Arakune again. Hell, she didn't even want to run into the monster that was once a man ever again, as she thought that fate had decreed that she wouldn't be allowed to save him.

And yet, here they were, just by pure happenstance being in the same area as she was at the moment. _"This can't be a coincidence…can it?"_ She thought while crossing an arm under her chest and using the other hand to prop her chin up.

Fate was clearly playing a game, and she was unfortunate to be one of the pieces in play. Yet, even so, if the chance presented itself to try and save him again, then why shouldn't she take it?

"… _Even if this world is freed from the time loops, that won't do anything for Roy's situation."_ Shina parted her arms and thought back to the previous world she had been to, when she was unable to do anything to help Elphelt as she was taken away by her 'Mother'.

Closing her eyes and trying to put on a serene expression, Shina thought _"…I can't stay on these worlds forever, I know that…But right now I have a chance to give some of these people a happy ending."_ Raising a couple hands before her chest, she then realized while wearing a tiny, goofy smile _"It's what I should've realized from the start…I can repeat this cycle as many times as it takes…"_

Her body tensed up a little and she pressed her hands between her chest, recalling and feeling the phantom pain of the times Nu had used her as a pincushion. Yet she remained as strong as she could, telling herself bravely _"It…it hurts to die, and I'll always be afraid of death, I know that but…"_

Lifting her head up, the girl then reflected upon Bang's words and murmured "But as long as I'm alive, I can keep getting back up and trying again." Taking in a deep breath and releasing a drawn out sigh of relief, Shina smiled and then clapped her hands before her chest before saying "Right! Enough loitering around! Gotta go find Roy before Bang does! Anyways Carl, you might-"

As she spun around to look at the boy, she found herself staring blankly at the bed as both him and Nirvana were gone. She blinked a couple times, imagining the duo's presence there for a little bit before tilting her head and going "H-Huh…? Where'd they run off to?"

"…Did you black out or something there? They literally ran right past you a moment ago."

Shina turned around and saw the subordinate still kneeling on the ground with his body trembling a bit. Rubbing the side of her face, she then asked "Are you ok?" to which he replied "M-Master Bang forgot to dismiss me…"

Blinking a couple times and then looking away with a sharp whistle through her lips, Shina politely asked "Soooo, which way is south from here?" The subordinate raised his right hand up behind him and said "T-That way…"

Clapping her hands again, the girl replied in an appreciative tone "Thank you very much! And uhhh…please try and get up BEFORE your master gets back, ok?" She requested that with a hint of concern for the man, but then she was off to take care of business before said person could reply. As she hopped over the balcony, the subordinate started sweating through his face mask while murmuring "O-Oh…why did I have that extra helping of tea this morning…?"

Outside the building, Shina landed on a rickety rooftop and leaned her body forward, humming to herself while trying to find signs of activity. "Now, where DID that boy go…" She murmured in a sing-song tone. Looking downward, she found a few skid marks on the roof's slats that only someone of Nirvana's build could've made.

Running to the edge of the roof, she swung her body to the right and saw the skid marks going towards the road down below. Some people were at the sides of the road looking towards the distance in confusion, so it was quite clear where Carl had gone off to.

" _That boy's gonna get himself killed if he keeps this up, I swear…"_ Shina took a moment to scratch the side of her head and bemoan his behavior almost like she was his mother. But that's not the point of view she saw the situation in as she quickly cracked a wide smile and exclaimed "But that's why big sis Shina is here to help!"

She flipped off the edge of the roof and softly landed on the stone road, breaking straight into a sprint past the perplexed populace while rapidly apologizing for the disturbances. She kept going until running across one of the wooden bridges, where a certain cat-shaped blur entered her vision by leaping straight at her, proclaiming gleefully "BOOBIE JR.!"

Shina recoiled from her leaning, running stance and ended up pushing her chest forward, their bountiful bounce enticing the playful Tao to swing her paws out faster than light just to get a grasp on them. When contact was made, Shina's blood rushed to her cheeks and she swung her right fist down to bonk Tao atop the noggin. The kitty backed off and placed her paws on her head, muttering in surprise "Ow ow ow! Why you gotta hit Tao so hard Boobie Jr.?!"

Giving a reprimanding wiggle of her pointer finger, Shina tried to remain calm as she explained "I-It's rude to greet someone like that Tao!" Tao's response was a cutesy "v" mouth with eyes blank and blinking.

A dull sigh escaped Shina's mouth as she shook her head with a rhythm similar to a clock's pendulum. "Well anyways Tao…" she said, looking down at the Kaka with eyes glistening with bliss "You DO know Arakune is in town, right?"

Tao's expression turned into a scowl before she roared with a childish ire "Grrrr, Scruffy Man told Tao all about Squiggly! Tao's got a vendetta to settle with them!" Curious, Shina waved her hand aside and asked "Then…why are you here?"

Tao surprised the girl by making her anger disappear in a nanosecond, replacing it with a dot-shaped mouth and embarrassed stare before she stated nonchalantly "Oh! Tao got lost! Tao doesn't know what direction 'Seeeouf' is!"

With pity towards the kitty's lack of an education, Shina slowly raised her pointer over Tao's head and said "You should go that way, but-"

"Alriiiiight! Thanks Boobie Jr.!" Energetic to the bone, Tao spun herself around on the spot and dashed off like a cheetah, kicking up a gale that blew Shina's hair so far up that it was like a carpet laid out off the back of her head.

Fluttering her eyelashes, Shina ran after Tao and murmured "I gotta get to Arakune before the others do." Sprinting through the streets, she noticed that the people were getting more worried the further along she got. This part of town was easy to navigate through even if the buildings blended together.

Eventually Shina ran into a road block in the form of a crowd, all of whom were looking towards the rooftops. Shina followed their gaze to find that Bang was leaping back and forth across them in pursuit of Arakune, who sprung his malleable mass between each side of the buildings like a slinky.

"I said HALT you fiend!" Bang could be heard yelling as he went out of sight. Shina gazed at the crowd and heard mumblings of a 'kidnapping' amongst their ilk. To better scope out the situation, she made a swift leap towards the leftmost roof and curved her hands against the eyebrows while leaning forward.

She'd find that Arakune had absconded with a small child. Couldn't have been any older than ten judging by how underdeveloped their features were. The child swung their arms and kicked their feet, the goop so ingrained with their clothes that every effort led to them getting jerked back in. This predicament left Bang gritting his teeth, hiding his fear behind a wall of pure rage. Once more, he yelled towards Arakune "You will not get away from me, evil blob!"

The gelatinous gremlin stopped at the edge of the roof overlooking some cherry blossoms and twisted it's masked face around, babbling in his gargled voice "D-n't ne-d sm-ly -a-! Gro-s, gr-s!" That pause gave Bang the opening he needed to sprint across the slats and throw a punch towards the monster's face.

With what little cunning he could muster, Arakune propped the child up on a bulge. Bang widened his eyes and stopped his fist millimeters from the child's face. The child's mouth was bound by Arakune's goop and their heart looked ready to burst from the chest, with tears dribbling down the cheeks. Bang lowered his head and his extended fist trembled, with even his hot-bloodedness shaking as he declared "D-Darn you, you…you fiend!"

Shina's heart raced and she swung her right hand out to draw her rapier, caring not for the distance between the two. Such a thing didn't matter, for she WOULD cross it before it was too late. Pressing her feet against the roof, she leaped with all she had towards Arakune. The environment blurred around her eyes with how fast she sped forward, and she swung her weapon back while focusing on the very bottom of the bulge.

"SQUIGGLY JUSTICE RESCUE!"

Tao's screeching cry cut through the tension sharper than her own claws, and a moment later she was seen flying straight at Arakune while using those very protrusions to slice through the goop binding the child. Shina widened her eyes and swung her legs forward to land on the roof behind Bang, her feet grinding up the slats as she tried to brake. Looking up, she saw as the child was sent flying into the air with arms and legs cuddled against their body.

Arakune looked at the splattered goop on his back and perked his 'face' up while putting itself back together, only to be met with a double-palm thrust from Tao. "Bad Squiggly, BAD!" She proclaimed ecstatically. Arakune's mass wiggled back and started losing it's balance off the edge of the roof.

"Grhh…grhh…!" The monster garbled out from what remained of it's throat. Tao then laid her chin atop her grounded paws and with a waggle of her tails she pounced atop the monster and forced them off the roof. With the area shaking upon their landing, Shina was about to run after the two when Bang landed in front of her with the child cradled in his arms.

"Good work Disciple #1!" His exclamation was full of praise, but he took upon a softer tone as he looked the child in the eyes and said "It's alright now. That monster won't lay another hand on you."

"T-Thank you Mr. Bang…" The child could be identified as a boy when they spoke, even with how quiet they were. He was a tinge unnerved still, so Bang glanced over his shoulder and acknowledged Shina's presence by asking "Ah, Ms. Aurora, you're here! Please, take this child back to his parents while I handle that monster!"

Shina held her arms out to accept the child but also tried to get Bang to hear her out "Mr. Bang, wait! Arakune is-" The ninja had already run to the end of the rooftops while swinging a pair of fingers beside his face and exclaiming "I'll hear you out later!" before jumping right off.

Shina blinked twice then felt her right cheek being tugged at by cold, tiny fingers. Looking down at the kid, she found him innocently remarking "You remind me of mama…"

The girl's face turned redder than a tomato and her eyes glazed over as she glanced away, stammering out "Hahaha aren't you cute! Ummm…" She quickly hopped off the roof and turned towards the crowd to exclaim "Looking for some parents! Anyone? Anyone?!" Her face stayed red while she made the occasional glance back at the battle going on near the bridge.

Tao had gotten tangled up in Arakune's goop, but used the situation to her advantage in order to roll him along the ground like the two had been conjoined to make a runaway wheel. "You're not going to get away from Tao this time Squiggly, paw-pare for justice!" At the center of the bridge Tao bounced up and swung the monster's condensed mass like a basketball overhead, slamming him right down a moment later and leaving him a splattered puddle.

Arakune tried to wiggle away, but Tao hunched forward and drew her curved claws out. Viciously slashing at the goop one set of claws at a time, the kitty failed to connect even as she left sharp crimson marks on the air, as the blob was nimbler than the peskiest fly. Every time Arakune dodged, he let out a swift "No!" and got just a little farther away from Tao.

"Gah! Stop being so squiggly Squiggly! You're frustrating Tao!" She exclaimed as Arakune stood up in his neutral form, wiggling his hand around and exclaiming "Do-'t ne-d…imp-e! De-ec-ive…! Pu-e…Azur-…G-ve me th- Azu-e!" Tao paused and laid a paw over her chin, remarking in confusion "Huh? Ash-sure…? What's an Ashsure?"

Even though he wouldn't have responded with an answer, Arakune's ramblings were nevertheless interrupted by a series of thin, sharp wires weaving their way around him like a cage. Carl was behind him, guiding Nirvana to keep wrapping him up as tightly as possible, all the while remarking with a glint of intrigue in his glasses "So you're after the Azure too…Unfortunately, I can't let you get your grubby hands on it! I need it to save my sister, so you're going to be handed over the NOL where you belong, monster!"

Though faced with a cage that even the hardiest of prisoners would have trouble breaking free from, Arakune managed to slowly ooze through the miniscule cracks and drip onto the ground below, hardening parts of his body to push apart the wires so his 'face' could slip out too. Carl widened his eyes in surprise and said "Huh? H-How?! Ada's cage is supposed to be impenetrable!"

When Arakune reformed he looked towards the doll and stretched his head left and right, murmuring with intrigue "N-x Nycto-r-s Ni-a-a…K-k-noe…Ko-onoe…!" He sprawled the sides of his body open and summoned some boney talons, giggling insanely "T-m- t- f-HEHEHEHEHEH-ast!" Then with one gluttonous lunge from the monster Carl was stiff with fright, and he coiled one hand against his body while swing the other out.

"S-SIS!"

Nirvana tried her hardest to defend him by drawing the wires back into her claws before lunging them straight at the beast, but Arakune coiled itself around the limb like a snake and used the length of it's body to start devouring the doll. Witnessing this sight sent Carl into a frenzy, and he swung his cape out to summon a small automaton that lunged a tiny lance at the creature's face while he exclaimed "GET AWAY FROM HER!"

The creature giggled as it swung it's 'face' left and right to dodge those pitiful strikes, and it was almost like a part of him enjoyed this. That pleasure would prove fleeting as soon enough he'd be nailed in the face by one of Bang's gauntlets, which was preceded by the man exclaiming "Get away from my second disciple and his strange doll sister you malleable menace!"

Arakune was blown right off of Nirvana's arm and once more splattered on top of the bridge. This time however, he seemed to have been temporarily knocked out. Carl looked up at Bang as he stood along Nirvana with his fist stretched out atop her arm, and as the ninja turned to crack a smile the boy's eyes were wide with awe as he stammered "M-Mr. Bang…!"

"You've performed admirably Disciple #2. But you need not push yourself any further. Allow me to show you a more…simple method for apprehending criminals!" Bang stepped past Nirvana, who lowered her arms upon sensing Carl at ease, and pulled out a nail from his belt.

"This nail, crafted in the fires of Ikaruga's Cauldron, contains a web that'll leave even the squirmiest of suspects unable to move!" Bang smiled and looked down at Arakune, flipping the nail around in his hand to show off to his awe-struck vigilante partners before pinching it between two fingers at gesturing it straight at the blob.

"So, any last words before you're locked away for good, you kid kidnapping ne'er-do-well?!"

"W-Wait, Mr. Bang!"

Bang blinked a few times as Shina's voice entered his ears. "That's strange. Your voice is more…feminine than I had imagined it would be." In the ninja's moment of being flabbergasted, Arakune sprung off the ground and took the form of a shark as he flew right over Bang and Nirvana's head and splashed against the ground behind them. He kept his form as he 'swam' through the ground towards the nearby sewer pipe.

Bang spun around and tucked the nail into his pocket, breaking into a sprint towards the pipe while exclaiming "HALT!" As Tao and Carl followed him, Shina was behind them all going as fast as she could to catch up, thinking to herself how odd it was that Arakune wasn't attacking anyone.

Arakune slipped into the pipe that was big enough for any of the three vigilantes to continue their pursuit, but a wall of aura was drawn before their view and Shina landed between them both with her hands swung up over her head. Screaming forcefully "HOLD IT…!" she paused and then added a more polite "P-Please…?"

Bang stopped on the dime and swung his arms out to hold off his two eager compatriots. Tao laid her paws atop Bang's rippling biceps and tried to haul herself over, exclaiming in disbelief "Awww come on Boobie Jr., you're letting Squiggly get away!" while Carl tried to duck under the arm as he yelled out "That monster tried to swallow Ada! I'm going to make him pay!"

"I…I can't let you guys hurt him!" Shina pleaded.

"Huh? You some sort of Squiggly sympathizer Boobie Jr.?!" Tao's outburst was reprimanded by a swift tap on the head by Bang, who turned his head to look at both his disciples while saying calmly "Now now, calm down. Lets hear Ms. Aurora out." He then sternly folded his arms against his chest and looked at Shina, nudging his head a bit forward to give her permission to speak.

Shina smiled after a sigh of relief and perked her head up. The three were anticipating the truth in their own ways, but none of them were as patient as Bang was. It was both incredible and respectful how the man could so nonchalantly shift between these two natures of his, which made it all the harder to tell him the truth about Arakune.

Bang was a man of many talents, and his heart burned not just with justice but for love as well. The one person he loved the most, however, was Litchi Faye-Ling.

" _Yeah, but…"_ Shina recognized the snag that came about from his connection to the doctor. Would he believe that such a gross monster was connected to her? Even so, would he be jealous or accepting? Knowing what type of person Bang was did little to ease this predicament. So, without a second more of hesitation, Shina blurted out "A-Arakune was once a human by the name of Roy! And…and he was the person Litchi cares for the most in this world."

She could see the dejection on Bang's face immediately. His heart must've stopped beating for a moment, and his normally tan skin looked one shade paler. The man stared Shina in the eyes and was on the edge of his current calm as he asked "Is what you are saying true?" The girl closed her eyes and slowly nodded her head. It was the toughest nod she had ever given, and it was as though days had passed before she was done.

Bang closed his eyes and opened his mouth. Shina winced and dreaded the response.

"…How horrible. No wonder Ms. Litchi always seemed so…distant." The two opened their eyes at the same time, with Bang still as calm as ever while Shina seemed more perplexed by his choice of emotions.

"To think that her lovely smile hid such a tragic tale of love found and lost."

"Huh…? You…believe me?" Shina blinked a few times, thinking this was but a dream, but Bang's words were reassurance that it was the contrary "Did you not do the same when I said why I helped you?"

"…Yeah, true." Shina tilted her head and felt a bit embarrassed to have underestimated the man like that. Shaking off that embarrassment, she looked him in the eye and explained confidently "Anyways, if I can get to Arakune, I can use my powers to salvage Roy's soul and give it to Litchi."

Bang grinned and told her "Then what are you standing around for? He'll get away if you keep waiting." Shina widened her eyes and then smiled, giving him a nod before saying "Thank you, Mr. Bang!" She then turned around and dispelled the aura wall with a diagonal wave of the hand, running into the deep, dank tunnel right after. Before she was too far in, Bang yelled out "We'll stay guard out here, just in case he tries to escape!"

It didn't take long for Shina to lose the light from outdoors, which was replaced by a few dim red lamps around the walls. Her shoes made a splash every time she stepped upon the sludge filled flow, making it's repugnant scent rise into her nostrils every time she did so. It was so noxious, like someone had eaten a rotten egg, shat it out, then had a skunk spray all over it. Only the bravest of fools would dare to crawl through this gunk.

"… _Oh, yeah."_ Shina blushed and then laid a hand over her face, visualizing a gas mask and recreating it with her aura. Then she laid her right palm up against the air and condensed aura into a sparkling light to make it easier to see what was up ahead. The moment she did so, she heard the echoes of splashing moving away from her at a fervent pace.

Widening her eyes, Shina hastened after the sound. Rounding the nearest corner down the right path of an intersection, she made one misstep and slipped on some soapy gunk, causing her to stumble forward. Her hand latched out from the railing nearby and grabbed it before even a strand of hair could touch the ground. Pulling herself up with the heart racing, she looked ahead and could hear the sounds getting farther away.

" _I can't let you get away Roy…Not this time!"_

Running forward with all she had, Shina kept her hand held up to ensure she wouldn't lose her path. The sounds of him fleeing got closer and closer, but she could not make out his visage amongst the darkness. Then, suddenly, a mass of black goop sprung forth from the ground and spun around, planting it's pale white 'face' against Shina's own and making her heart jump so high it was like it had been lodged in her throat.

The 'face' was cold and wet, and smelled of the sewage more than anything else in this tunnel. Not even the mask could block that horrid stench, and Shina started slowly stepping back while feeling an unease welling in her gut. But the mass did not move along with her. It stayed in place, twirling it's 'face' around like a corkscrew tightening.

Shina looked him in the eyes and gulped, pushing that lump down and trying to stand courageous against the being before her. She slowly raised her left hand and asked "Roy? I-Is there any chance you're in there somewhere?" Arakune whipped it's 'face' back into place and raised it's body higher, but pushed it's 'face' out further.

"You…I remember you…"

Shocking Shina to the core, Arakune spoke not just with familiarity towards her, but also with a clarity that he had never been able to before now. The voice was that of a man tired and unsure. The girl's skin was riddled with goosebumps, and after a gasp she laid a hand before her mask and remarked "It is you, isn't it Roy?"

"Yes. For now, anyways. And you…you're the girl who helped Litchi reclaim my soul from this…This monster I have become."

"I wish I could explain why you remember me, but-"

"No, I've heard of this phenomenon before from the Professor…I believe it was called shifting…" Arakune shook his head left and right and then focused his eyes towards Shina, telling her honestly "But none of that matters now…You have come to try and free me again, haven't you?"

Shina remained surprised by what was happened as she nodded her head in a docile manner. Then, Arakune requested with soft bluntness "Please…Forget all about me." Shina widened her eyes and exclaimed "What?! No way am I doing that! You can't possibly tell me you're satisfied with this!"

Arakune's 'face' looked to his own body before speaking out with a degree of grief "This…was never what I could've possibly expected from my experiments." Then his voice got more proud, as he stretched and twisted his 'face' towards the ceiling before continuing "But look at me…Inside this body contains knowledge unlike anything anyone in this world has ever born witness to!"

"And it's tearing your mind apart…" Shina said with pity as she lowered her head. Arakune bent his 'face' down and swung it before her line of sight, telling her frankly "Yes, that was always going to be the downside to such knowledge. To comprehend the incomprehensible…Was always my goal, even knowing it might destroy everything I ever was, am, or shall be."

Arakune then pulled back into his own body and stared at Shina with a serenity projected that was unbecoming of such a monster. "I made my decision long ago…If my fate is to disappear forever, absorbed into this monster, then I'll be happy knowing it was only my fault in the first place."

Shina stamped her right foot down and exclaimed "And what about Litchi?! She loves you! Her heart's in shambles because she's doing everything she can to try and save you! Is all your knowledge worth tearing her feelings to pieces?!"

Arakune pulled back and hung his head down, remarking in a docile tone "…I've made my choice. At this point, it's too late to save me anyways. Even your method of wrenching my soul from this body is but a temporary fix to a greater obsession. Nothing would stop me from simply trying again…It is for Litchi's peace of mind, and perhaps yours as well, that I just be forgotten."

"Don't you realize how SELFISH you sound?!" Shina was absolutely fuming at what she was hearing, but without a care the man replied "As though you are no different in trying to save me."

Shina bit her lower lip and gasped, offended on a degree she rarely ever was. With face red with rage, her voice deepened and she said to him "F-Fine! If you're going to be like this, then I don't WANT to save you anymore. Litchi deserves better than you anyways!" Sharply spinning around, Shina stamped her shoes atop the sludge and started to storm off, with Roy letting out his last lucid remark towards her "…That, I agree with…"

Shina halted and looked a bit surprised by that remark, but by the time she looked over her shoulder the monster was long gone. Laying a hand on her chest, the girl felt a bit weird to see him go. Despite fighting to try and save him twice now, Shina found herself feeling a bit…pleased to have failed with Arakune. Even though they were her own feelings, she could understand them at all.

With a disheartened moan, Shina slowly turned her head around and began the sluggish trek out of the sewers. It took her half an hour to make it through, but as the light outdoors greeted her with a blinding flash she found that Bang was true to his word and stuck around with Tao and Carl. They were sitting on the ground as Bang regaled the two with stories of his past.

"…And THAT is how I forged my first nail! …And promptly lost it." Bang chuckled while Carl crossed his arms atop his legs and murmured "Wow…You're pretty cool Mr. Bang!" Tao tilted her head and remarked "Nyah. What's a Calldrone Scruffy Man?"

"Well Tao, a Cauldron is-" Before he could say anymore, the sloshing footsteps caused by the gunk on Shina's shoes caused him to glance over his shoulder and remark "Ah, Ms. Aurora, you've made it back safe and sound! And I assume with tales of victory and conquest!"

Shina cracked a small smile and slowly shook her head, telling him "He got away." Bang blinked a couple times and said "Is that so? Well, there's always next time I suppose!" Looking away from him, the girl rubbed the side of her head and started to walk past the group, whispering to them "I-I'm sorry, I gotta go…" Her departure left the trio confused, but only Bang looked at her and hummed curiously.

 _A few hours later…_

Late night has fallen upon Kagutsuchi. The moon was high above, the stars were as bright as ever, but they were now joined by the colorful flashes and bursts from the celebratory fireworks all across the city. Shina laid atop the highest roof in Ronin-Gai, her arms folded behind her head while her body was stretched out so much the bottom of her shirt had been pulled up an inch.

She enjoyed the sights above and felt at ease. With a dulled expression, she rested here not because of depression, but out of a need to contemplate. Taking in the chill night air through her nostrils, she let out a lukewarm breath and thought back to Arakune's last words.

" _As though you are no different in trying to save me."_

Shutting her eyelids a bit, the girl whispered "Have I really been selfish?" She closed her eyes all the way and hummed as she thought back even further. Helping Noel fight Nu twice and Jin once, saving Litchi from Tager and then trying to get her Roy's soul, and then once more trying to free the soul from his monstrous form…None of that screamed "selfish" in Shina's mind.

Yet, what scratched at Shina's scalp was that most of what she's done in this world has little to do with the most important thing of all…

" _Stopping Nu, and getting the artifact piece."_

It was not that she had forgotten how important that was. It was just that so many failures to help the people she met managed to wear down on her admittedly fragile self-confidence. Yet, one could argue that perhaps had she not forced herself to try and help all these people in the first place that she'd have been better off emotionally.

" _It's like I tried to have my cake and eat it too…"_

But, thinking about this matter all by her lonesome, with no other people or problems to distract her, made her realize what was most important now.

" _Stopping Nu and getting the artifact piece will solve a lot more problems…and save a lot more people too. Not just the ones living on this world, but my people too. Of course, that's what this was all about from the start, wasn't it?"_

Cracking a tiny smile, Shina quietly reprimanded herself "Oh Shina, you've been such an idiot these last few loops…But perhaps that cold slap from reality was just what you needed to regain focus."

Sitting herself up while opening her eyes, she curled her legs back and laid her hands across them, remarking with a more determined outlook than before "Right! Now I know what I must do! I know for a FACT that Alex'll go to the NOL HQ. He's never been one to get distracted. So next time, I'll go up there and either wait or catch up with him. Maybe if we combine our powers, that'll be the key to kicking her ass!"

Pumping a fist before her chest, Shina puffed her cheeks a little and let out a quiet "Yeah!" to keep her energy up. Then she looked towards the sky and thought _"Now, how much longer until the time loop ends?"_

"Aha! I finally found you, Ms. Aurora!" To Shina's surprise, her ears were assaulted by the hot-blooded cries of Bang once more. She turned her head and found the ninja standing next to her. He was true to his title, for she didn't even sense or hear him. Blinking a couple times she said "O-Oh, Mr. Bang! I wasn't…uhhh, expecting you to find me."

He sat down beside her with legs bent against his chest, remarking proudly "A ninja always finds his target, no matter where they may hide!" Shina stared at him for a little until he scratched the side of his head and admitted quietly "That may have come across more creepy than I had intended…"

Shina giggled, freeing Bang of his bout with embarrassment. He then looked at her and said "You have a wonderful laugh." When she was done, Shina blushed and with a brief nod said "Why thank you."

Then she asked "So…What's up?" Bang made no hesitation to say "You failed to complete your mission, didn't you?" Shina fluttered her eyelids and then nestled her face between her legs as she placed them together and wrapped them in her arms.

"Yeah…I guess I did."

"Say no more. I'm sure you have your reasons." Bang put his hands behind his head and leaned back, to enjoy the spectacle in the sky, his smile brimming his joy.

"Such a wonderful time of the year this is. Though I suppose in about five minutes, it will no longer BE this year."

Shina peeked at him with widened eyes and murmured "Five minutes left…?" She looked towards the sky once more. Soon enough, the light of Doomsday would come down. It would eclipse the stars, the fireworks, even the very moon itself until nothing of this city remained.

Seeing as this would be the last time she'd probably see Bang, Shina slowly glanced at him and inquired "Mr. Bang…If you wouldn't have been able to help me the first time, would you have kept trying?"

Bang turned his head towards her and remarked "What a curious question…I suppose if I must answer though, I'd say that I'd probably have left you be." Shina perked her brows up and said "Huh? But what about your 'try, try again' philosophy?"

"Certainly, my words still ring true. But when it comes to helping people with their personal matters, sometimes it's important to just respect ones boundaries. Had my advice not helped you, then while I'd have been concerned for your well-being, I'd be perfectly content with letting you go so someone else may have provided you with the answers you needed."

Shina cracked a smile, thinking of a certain someone she knew as she replied "Maybe I oughta consider that with a friend of mine. Well Mr. Bang, don't let anyone tell you that you aren't good at giving out advice. Heck, you cut down the yelling and stop having a vendetta against shirts and you'd make a good teacher!"

"Hahaha!" Bang roared with amusement before he replied "Perhaps I should make one of those my last minute resolution! …Your compliment is appreciated, Ms. Aurora. And what of you? What is your New Year's Resolution?"

Shina tilted her head a little and then felt the planet itself tremble. Looking towards the sky, she saw a bright light streaking down towards the city. Closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath to brace for it's impact, she told Bang honestly "To do things right next time loop…" The ninja lifted his head in confusion, but would not get a word in edgewise before the light crashed down upon Kagutsuchi. The city was wiped out, but what it would not be able to destroy this time was Shina's regained determination. And next time, she'd come back with a vengeance more fiery than Alex's flames…

 _Next Time: The Face of Evil_


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22: Snared by the Snake**

"Hrrmmm…" Alex was deep in thought as he in the middle of a casual stroll through the streets of Kagutsuchi. Now on his fourth time loop, he had to take a moment to piece together all the facts presented to him, especially after the plethora of info that was dumped upon him last time.

" _So, Nu's soul is bound to the artifact piece every time the Black Beast dies in the past. That means she'll remember every move I've made."_ His face tensed up, and he pulled a hand from his pockets to rub at the chin. It was a rarity to see him looking so troubled, something even he acknowledged amidst his other thoughts _"That makes my trump card completely ineffective, which SUCKS because that's the only tool I have to get around her damn Life Link with Ragna!"_

The idea of killing Ragna along with Nu crossed his mind, but he waggled his head to be rid of it while grumbling "Yeah, not happening. Even if it'd be for the greater good, that's a line I REFUSE to cross." He swiped his right arm out for emphasis on that matter, then tucked it into his pocket. Pausing in the middle of the road as a large crowd walked around him, he looked towards the NOL HQ and released a drawn out sigh.

"This is just one big pain in the ass…" And to him, said pain gnawed at his brain much like a beaver would to a tree. With a raising of his brows, the boy tilted his head and put on a slight frown before remarking "…I don't know where THAT came from."

Closing his eyes and releasing another sigh, he drooped his shoulders and whispered "Maybe I'm slowly going insane…" Then with a scowl he mumbled "This would be so much easier if I could just find Shina, but I don't even have the first idea where to look."

He pulled a hand up and gave the side of his face a flat palmed slap, which stung colder than a winter storm thanks to the leather from his glove. Digging his fingers inward to push his cheek skin down, his ensuing thoughts were bitter towards himself _"Should've asked Rachel where she's been…Could've tried to retrace her steps. But no way I'm going to try and get in contact with her now, not after all that bluster about stopping Nu."_

Pulling his hand away and brushing it aside his shoulder, he put on a lofty air and masterfully mimicked Rachel's posh tone "Oh, so the dog doth drag himself back with his tail between his legs…No, you are less than a dog, you are more akin to a worm, one barely able to crawl along dirt more wet than my tea."

Alex then shook his fist towards the sky, and at the cost of looking like a loon he exclaimed "You hear that Rachel?! That's what you sound like!" He then slammed his fist into his pocket and puffed his with a "Hmph!"

He knew that she had to have been watching from somewhere, whether it be from the safety of her home or some lofty perch nearby. It was her sworn duty as an Observer after all. But she wasn't the only one watching. He had forgotten about it amongst the chaos last loop, but Terumi more than likely had his eyes on him still. And a snake like him could be ANYWHERE.

Glancing around with a tense glare, the boy found only a few people looking his way, but they were just common folk reacting to an adolescent's sudden outburst with curiosity. Alex closed his eyes and nudged his shoulders up, his emotions dull to what would make others paranoid _"Guess I'm just used to being watched…"_

As he turned his head back around, someone's left arm rammed into his as they were walking by, the rough motion feeling almost deliberate. After Alex stumbled a couple steps aside from the push he turned himself around and started to yell "Hey, watch where you-" but paused with a gasp the moment he saw who his assailant was.

Striking green hair, a fedora atop it, and a real 'Devil wears Prada' sort of suit…These traits perfectly described the wicked man who so casually walked amongst the land of the living, Yuuki Terumi. Or, as he's more commonly referred to in his current guise, Captain Hazama. Alex's face turned pale for a moment, and then glowed a bright shade of red as his eyes narrowed into a piercing glare. His throat stiffened and a paranormal chill glided over the front of his body, and he watched as the man showed full awareness of what he was doing by slowly lowering his extended left elbow until it was an inch away from his hip.

Tightening his fists until the knuckles crackled and popped, Alex pulled them out of his pockets and held them aside his hips. He glared at the man as if trying to pierce his very soul.

And Terumi was completely conscious of that, as Alex could see the man's body shiver just a little bit as he slowly turned to glance over his shoulder, breaking his gentlemanly façade with a slight opening creak of his eyelids. The man, with his hazy, slithering yellow eyes, thus paused not a moment later, as did the one standing beside him, Noel Vermillion.

"Captain Hazama…?" She inquired while turning her body to face him. He was swift to close his eyes and adopt the professional demeanor once more, addressing his Lieutenant with a smile and an aloof remark "Oh…Forgive me Lieutenant, but I just remembered something. Go on ahead, I'll catch up with you later." Noel then widened her eyes.

"H-Huh? What's wrong?" She murmured.

Even someone as naïve as her could sense something was up, but as Terumi laid a hand on the rim of his fedora and lowered it to cover his eyes he berated her with a stinging remark "Perhaps I am mistaken, but I s-WEAR I just heard my authority being questioned."

Noel shook her head and stammered "N-N-No! Not at all! I was just-" Terumi's smile grew wider and he waggled a finger before his chest as though reprimanding a puppy "Ah ah ah. Run along Miss Vermillion…Or perhaps I should bring this indictment into consideration on your next evaluation." His tone got soft but harsh, a bit of his true nature slipping out from impatience.

With a pale face that was born of her heart leaping against her chest, Noel meekly said "I-I'm sorry! I'll…I'll see you later C-C-Captain Hazama…" She then tensely bit her teeth together and briefly glanced at Alex before scampering off northward.

Smile still present, Terumi proudly remarked to himself "Aaaah, that'll NEVER get old" before swerving his body in a couple steps to look towards Alex. He glided his fingers along the rim of his fedora to pull it up. His eyes were still closed, and he was so insouciant to Alex's presence that the boy felt insulted.

The man gave a grin no bigger than the slit formed by the sealing of his eyelids, and remarked in a nonchalant tone "Well well well, and just who are **you** supposed to be?"

" _Bastard, you know EXACTLY who I am!"_

Alex's brows raised and his eyes were strained to stay wide. He didn't blink, refusing to give Terumi even an INCH of an advantage against him. The man laid the thumb of his other hand into his pocket and started to walk closer to Alex, one sluggish step at a time.

"Do you have business with me perhaps? I'll have you know I'm not particularly a fan of scuffles. No no no, my given line of work is more…intellectual, I'd say." As the man took a pause to breathe, Alex calculated that the distance between them was fifteen feet.

" _One second…No matter how far away he is, that's how long it would take me to close the distance and attack."_

Terumi opened his mouth again, his next words used for the sake of dissecting his chosen prey "Lets see here…You appear to be hot-tempered, perhaps someone fond of fire?" He peered his eyes open a little bit, the distance between them now twelve feet, and remarked with an undertone of glee "Though that might just be a **stab** in the dark for all I know. I am quite **Nu** to this, I'll have you know."

" _Thump!"_

Alex's heart beat against his chest like a bass drum, and he swallowed a wad of saliva bigger than the circumference of his esophagus while his eyes shifted left and right at the crowd of people around him. They were all witnesses to whatever Alex chose to do next. Terumi had already set the stage by forcing a situation where Noel would address him by his ill-earned rank within the NOL. All who stood around would thus not see the murder of 'Hazama' as anything more than a senseless act of violence.

" _THUMP!"_

Alex's body went stiff, and he mumbled a quiet "Damn it" under his breath. Terumi's smile grew wider, and now it was his gaze piercing through to the boy's soul. "Oh, but there's one thing I know for sure." As he caressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and let loose a few clicks, he was now eight feet away from Alex.

" _THUMP!"_

"You've broken into Kagutsuchi's HQ before…That would make you a wanted criminal, correct?" He slipped those words out so casually, it showed just how prepared he was for this moment. Alex knew he wasn't a man who boasted lightly. In the end, he was someone as crafty as he was malicious, and every second Alex hesitated to end him was another moment the man took to figure him out.

" _ **THUMP!"**_

Four feet away from the boy, Terumi continued "So, are you looking to add to your rap sheet by…" he closed his eyes and forced a pitiful frown that matched his next tone of voice "…slaughtering a hard-working, innocent man..."

On a dime he returned to his malicious grin and finished with gravely, subdued excitement "Or perhaps you have another motive in mind, Elemental Overlord?!" He stamped the toes of his ritzy right shoe atop Alex's feet and leaned forward, staring him right in the eyes with his gruesome slit pupils and fanged smile, an arm crossed before his chest as he whispered taunts right into his face with his mangy, putrid breath.

"Well? Did I hit the **NAIL** on the head? Am I… **DEAD** on? What, are you too busy wallowing in the shit in your pants to respond?! Come on…I dare you. _**MAKE MY DAY.**_ "

" _ **THUMPTHUMPTHUMP!"**_

Adrenaline pumping at maximum, a cold sweat pouring off his forehead, and a rage in his body set to burst. These were all the ingredients necessary to set Alex off, and before Terumi or anyone else could notice he shunted his right hand down into his pocket and touched the Gaia Temporis. He stopped time for everyone but himself and Terumi, intriguing the man as the environment around him turned completely monochrome.

"Oh, now what have we here?" He remarked, faking obliviousness to Alex grabbing him by the neck and zipping past the crowd to a nearby café, where he was then slammed against it's thick brick wall with all the boy had.

With a wince brought upon by the jolt to his noggin, Terumi's hand dropped from his fedora to the side of his body, letting out a dry and gleeful laugh "Ehehehe! Now that's more LIKE IT! Come on, what else have you got?!" Alex swung his left hand far back, considering his options before slamming an open palm against Terumi's chest and digging the fingers in tightly.

"Why don't I see if Relius Clover built this body to have a heart?!"

Alex's efforts caused the man's rib bones to start crunching, but he just gave out a bellowing laugh before remarking "Crushing my rib cage? Ha, like you have it in you!"

"It'll be easy, _like crushing a grape!"_ Alex snarled out, gyrating his head around while lashing his tongue past his fully reddened face. Terumi grinned and his bones were crushed just a little more. In a rasp he kept his cool and remarked "P-Please! None of us would still be stuck in this shit-show if you could back up your bullshit!"

"Like that damn doll has anything to do with this! No, in this state you're in I can kill you without even trying!" Alex could not make Terumi flinch in the slightest and that was pissing him off more than anything else.

With a frenzied glare, Terumi enticed the boy as hard as he could "Then do it already! Or are you planning to bore me to death?!" Alex's brows slanted so low that you could plant crops on the wrinkles in his forehead, and with his voice deepening he slowly told the man "A monster like you deserves nothing less than a slow demise. I will make sure, that by the time I'm done with you, you'll remember EVERY. SINGLE. FEATURE…of the man who killed you!"

"Hehehe…Oh, I already am. The crinkled forehead, those eyes BURNING with hatred, and a snarl that could make even lions cry for their mama! Hahaha, little Ragy give me that very same look when I burned his home and kidnapped that little bitch he called a sister! Ehehehehe, and that look as just as delightful now as it was back then!"

As Alex crunched down a little further, Terumi grit his teeth into a scowl and calmly said "Look, I don't know what kind of dumbass brainwork led you to try this, but honestly…It's not going to make you look any better, shrimp."

"You think public perception matters to me?! I'm not from this world! In the end, all that matters to me is ridding this world of a malignant tumor like you!"

"Malignant? Oh, you know big words after all! Heh, I appreciate the compliment, honestly, I do!" Terumi closed his eyes a little and then after a close-lipped smile remarked "But you're a real king of the retards if you think this'll do shit to me!"

"You're not immortal. Death is MORE than a guaranteed end!"

"Ring ring! Ring ring! Hello, is this Alex Whiter's common sense? You might want to PICK UP! EHEHEHEHEHE!" Terumi relished in his own witty retort until he got deadly serious in reminding Alex "Killing ME won't be permanent so long as that malfunctioning doll's still mucking about!"

The boy's anger subsided for a moment as he glanced left and right, but then he quickly glared back at Terumi and cracked his rib bones some more. "Fuck that! You're just giving me even more of a reason to kill Nu this time! To make sure YOU stay down for good!"

"That's nowhere near a guarantee now is it? God, did you ROAST that brain of yours at some point?!" Terumi then closed his eyes and sniffed in the hesitation radiating off of Alex's body. Letting out a relaxed breath, the man started speaking casually to him "But hey, it's fine…I get it, time's a real BITCH and a half now isn't it?"

Then with a smile that crossed the breadth of his face, Terumi whispered to Alex "By the way…how's yours doing?" The boy's face flared into a state of primal rage and he grabbed the man by the his chest in both hands, lurching him from the wall and with a sharp turnaround he callously threw him through the crowd. He slammed back first into a pole and caused it to bend with an ear-rending creak, but all the while Terumi could only cackle like a maniac.

Landing on the ground, Terumi laid a hand on his fedora and stumbled around, finding it painful to bend forward without further damaging his ribs. He stared up, watching as Alex stampeded his way through the crowd, cracking the ground with every step. After a couple hacks, Terumi grinned and muttered enticingly "Come on…Come on…COME ON!"

Alex held his left palm out and slammed it against Terumi's chest to pin him against the pole, cracking his back as well. With eyes burning red with how far his rage would go, he swung his flaming right fist out and exclaimed "If you've laid even a FINGER on her, I'll-!"

Terumi swung his arms up and hastily insisted while keeping his overall nonchalant demeanor "No no no, scout's honor, I swe-Pffftt hahaha…Ok, no way I can say that cheesy bullcrap with a straight face, ehehehe!" Alex jerked his hand up a little and fumed through the nostrils, causing Terumi to relax into a fanged grin before replying "Oh calm your tits, I haven't laid a hand on her. Not YET, anyways…Ehehehe. Besides, no real need to when that worthless doll has harvested me a BOUNTIFUL crop of despair from that little bitch!"

Alex glanced aside, his eyelids sagging out of guilt before he quickly flared them open and glared at Terumi, questioning his words angrily "What do you mean by 'Yet'?!" Terumi was more than happy to oblige him with an answer "Honestly, I was perfectly content with just working behind the scenes as an average, everyday worker. But lets just say I've found a new…perspective on life thanks to this little encounter of ours."

Terumi's face stretched out as he grinned from ear to ear. His cheeks crinkled, his eyes glistening from an overflow of pure bliss, and he exclaimed right to Alex's face with no hesitation whatsoever "Your rage, her despair…It's so delectable, so new, so FRESH! You have provided me with the greatest feast I've had in a long, long time! But I could always get more, so much MORE out of the both of you! So go ahead, kill me…Pierce through my chest and grip my cold, beating heart! Tear my head off, rip my SPINE through the body! But next time around, after you HAVE failed to kill that persistent doll well…Lets just say I might want to get a little more… _intimate_ with Ms. Aurora, shall we?"

Those slimy words only furthered Alex's rage, yet carried a truth so honestly spoken that it was strong enough to still his fist from plowing through Terumi's face then and there. The man grinned, and after a light chuckle eased up on his bliss and remarked "That is, of course, unless you'd be willing to listen a little…proposition I have for you."

"What the HELL could you possibly have to gain from that?!" Alex grumbled through his gritted teeth. Terumi smiled and said "Oh quite plenty you'll find. But if I had to narrow it down to one reason, 'for my own amusement' should suffice, yes?"

Alex's body started trembling. His rage was at it's threshold and it was starting to dig into his body like a tumor. Yet, he couldn't release any of it out upon Terumi. By hesitating just for the sake of giving the monster his just deserts, Alex had instead found himself on the defensive. Without using his Nox Nyctores or his own Azure Grimoire, Terumi simply forged his words into the sharpest of swords and cornered the boy with them.

Then, for the finishing move, Terumi carefully plucked from his mind the perfect words to string together "And if you complete this task to my liking, then you have my word that I'll leave the both of you alone for one time loop."

Alex lowered his head, tightly gripping down on Terumi's jacket while tightening his flaming fist. One punch, one thrust of his palm to shatter the rib, either would've sufficed to end his life then and there…

" _But Shina's suffered enough because of my mistakes…T-The last thing I need is to have Terumi go after her too."_

Alex dispelled the flames from his fist and lifted his head up, and with a bitter scowl he told the man in a blunt, grizzled tone "You're a liar, Terumi, and the worst kind of scum I've ever bore witness to! You've abused your ability to deceive to sow discord between the Six Heroes, make the whole world believe that the Ikaruga Civil War was righteous, and instill a fucking DEVIL into the highest position of power within the NOL. Your existence…is a CANCER on this world that should have been purged EONS ago…and I will hide NOTHING about my hatred for you and your misdeeds. So you better listen and listen GOOD. If you don't stick to your word just this once, then you better run. And I'm not talking about something as banal as the main NOL HQ…No, you better crawl into the deepest, darkest depths of the Boundary and never come back, because that is the ONLY way you'll survive longer than one ATTOSECOND once the next time loop starts up."

Terumi was grinning all the while, patiently waiting for the boy to be done so he could say "Are you finished? Or do I finally get to tell you what the hell I'm even expecting from you." Alex let go of Terumi's chest a little and told him gruffly "Go right ahead."

"My request is simple, you'll find…Even a harebrained dumbass like you could pull this off! Ahem…" With a preceding cough, Terumi closed his eyes and returned to his 'Hazama' persona as he calmly ordered "You are to kill the wanted criminal Ragna the Bloodedge, and the NOL fugitive Jin Kisaragi!"

Alex widened his eyes, his body receiving a shock that shook him to the core, and with eyebrows slanted he exclaimed "Is this some kind of a joke?! After all you spewed about-" Terumi gleefully interrupted "There's a perfectly good reason why I'm asking this, perhaps you ought to let me finish first."

" _Yeah, it's all for your amusement you son of a bitch…!"_ The boy decided to keep further cursing in his mind to avoid feeding Terumi his rage. The man smiled and said "Say, that Life Link between Ragy and that doll is pretty annoying, isn't it? Well, if you were to just kill little Ragy off, that'd make it so much easier to deal with Unit 13, wouldn't you say? After all, without her 'pwecious wuver', she'd have no means of regenerating her body. As for Major Kisaragi, well…"

Terumi creaked his eyelids open and said "Since you've deigned yourself to be judge, jury, and executioner…Might as well exact 'justice' upon that cold-hearted rogue, wouldn't you agree?" Alex ignored that knock to his character and asked "And that's all you want?"

"You'll find it benefits us both, wouldn't you agree?"

"…Fine, I'll do it. Before the day is done, Ragna and Jin will be dead." Alex then slowly let go of Terumi and let him fall to the ground, turning around with a bitter scowl still on his face. Terumi brushed along the front of his jacket to iron the wrinkles out, then laid a hand on his fedora before remarking "Oh, by-the-by, you may want to try searching the Kagutsuchi HQ for the both of them. Now if you'll excuse me, once you've stopped this little magic show of yours I'm off to take a nap. But don't worry, I'll be sure to check up on your progress in due time. Ohoho, _look forward to it_ …"

Alex gripped his fists and dug into his pockets, tapping the Gaia Temporis with his knuckles while thinking _"God, it's times like this I really wish you'd let me go back in time…"_ Then he dispelled the frozen time and quickly glanced over his left shoulder. Under the guise of Hazama, Terumi slithered into the crowd as though nothing had occurred.

Biting his lower lip, Alex angrily grumbled "Great, now what the hell am I supposed to do…" Spinning around, he found Kagutsuchi HQ staring down at him from far up. Tilting his head to the right and rubbing the back of it, he grumbled "I can prolong the trip for a bit…Maybe I can come up with a plan."

For the next couple of hours, Alex slowly made his way towards the top of Kagutsuchi. He took every road he could on the way up, going the longest route possible. His legs got sore near the end of his trek, but the pain was nothing compared to the sheer scale of the headache he had trying to figure out how to outwit Terumi on this matter. The man would know if he tried to avoid killing the two, waiting for another time loop would be disobeying the agreement, and killing Terumi would do the same thing.

There were two people who could've helped, both who had a massive grudge against Terumi. However, Rachel was bound to her role as an Observer and could not fight, while Alex refused to give Kokonoe even the time of day. All these options that he could think of, and ultimately they led down the same path. Either kill Jin and Ragna, or let Shina suffer at the hands of Terumi.

Gripping a fist before his chest and looking down at it as he climbed the last staircase before Kagutsuchi's HQ, a part of him believed that there was no way that Shina couldn't possibly hate him after all that he's done on this world. Anger welled up in that fist he held, and he smashed it against the nearby rocks. Cracks shot up through to the top, dislodging large boulders that fell on and around Alex. But any that fell on his head just crumbled down to pebbles as he walked unflinchingly to the top of the stairs.

Looking to the right, Alex noticed the doors at the top were open. It was nighttime now, which could only mean that Ragna was in the midst of his assault. _"But could Jin be here as well?"_ If Alex's thoughts held true, things were about to get a LOT more complicated. Taking a deep breath, the boy began to climb the staircase. He was not ready for this, even though he had no choice but to.

" _Maybe…it is the right thing to do? To kill Ragna so I can kill Nu as well…"_ The boy gave himself a light slap on the side of the head and gave a berating comment "No, that's not **YOU** thinking that way Alex. It's **him** …"

With a shake of the head, he then remarked "Sacrificing one more life to save countless others…That's not how I operate. I can still find some way around that damn Life Link, I swear I can!" He went past the open doors and entered the hallway. Right away, he could hear the clanging of metal and the type of crackling that only comes from ice crystallizing over at a rapid pace.

Raising his brows, Alex rushed to the end of the hallway and slipped behind a statue before he could be noticed. Then, he looked out onto the foyer, and saw a heated battle unfolding before his very eyes.

"JIIIIN!" Ragna's guttural roar echoed off the walls as he swung his sword out in one-hand, sending out a wave of darkness to turn three small swords of ice to frost. In front of him Jin landed on the ground, his face unhinged with an indescribable glee as he ran at Ragna and thrust Yukianesa so hard it left a few rings of frost in his wake.

"Come on Brother, this can't be all you've got!" Jin screamed like a man devoid of all inhibitions, as only the purest, primordial form of pleasure guided his every move. Ragna slammed the side of his blade against Jin's and ice sprinkled out from it onto the ground as the Major grinded the two together while edging closer to Ragna.

Ragna swung his head down and the two butted foreheads, and the Grim Reaper let out a subdued growl of "Jin…I will never FORGIVE YOU!" Swinging his head around ecstatically, Jin exclaimed "Oh Brother…I've waited so long for the chance to kill you again! This hatred, this rage…It's just like when I cut off your arm!"

"HELL'S FANG!" Ragna retaliated by lunging his darkness covered fist straight into Jin's chest. A shockwave erupted and the Major was sent flying back ten feet through the air. But with consciousness intact, he just started laughing maniacally as he swung Yukinesa at the ground, lashing a wave of ice against it so it could glide straight at Ragna.

The man cut through the wave with a clean sweep of his blade, scattering the frost in a crescent around his feet. Jin skated forth upon landing and grabbed Yukinesa in both hands, holding it over his left shoulder as the ice that composed his blade thickened until it's girth was doubled but more rugged than a bed of spikes.

As Jin swung his blade, Ragna raised his upward while coating it in darkness shaped like a jagged wing. The two forces collided, but Ragna's was stronger. The ice shattered and spread skyward, falling slowly like a maiden snow. The two's furious scuffle was obscured by the snow, with the shadows of their figures revealed only by the sparks flying out from their clash of blades. But no amount of snow could hide Jin voicing his excitement at murdering his brother or Ragna's equally powerful vile towards him.

"GO TO HELL!"

"Come on Brooooother, I'll end your misery!"

"Will you shut up already you crybaby?!"

"Hahahahha! I've only just BEGUN!"

Alex observed the battle without making a sound. He kept his body completely motionless, his brain devoting all time towards thinking about what was happening _"What a screwed up family…Glad I don't have a psychotic brother who wants me dead."_ He was feeling a little relieved watching this unfold, though the reason why was a little morbid _"Still, this could be a good thing…If I'm lucky, maybe they'll both take each other."_

Lowering his brows, Alex puckered his lips and realized _"No that's not going to happen. Ragna's way out of Jin's league, even discounting the Azure."_ He then unfurled his lips and scowled _"Not to mention Terumi would be able to tell that I wasn't responsible…"_

He then gasped as the snow parted by a shockwave launched by a strong slash from Jin's Yukinesa clashing with Ragna's sword, and the Grim Reaper was rammed into the edge of the balcony. Jin then tucked his blade into his hilt and pulled back, grinning from ear to ear as he giggled out "Away you go…BROOOOTHER!" He then lunged across the distance in a second and drew his blade in an icy arc.

With Ragna letting out a teeth-clenched "Shit…!" he looked back and found himself pressed against the balcony. He put up his sword as best he could, but Jin's lunge was strong enough that when it connected the balcony could not brace itself and broke apart. Ragna was knocked off and started plummeting down into the abyss. Alex grit his teeth and also muttered "Shit…!" while Jin stood at the edge and exclaimed "Hahaha! Have a nice fall, Brother!"

A moment later, Ragna proved his defiance by unsheathing the scythe from his sword and swinging it up so it grabbed onto Jin's back, exclaiming as he pulled him towards the abyss "I'm not going alone Jin, YOU'RE COMING WITH ME!" Jin was ecstatic, and he drew Yukinesa again while screaming "Brilliant brother! Now I can have even MORE FUN!"

Alex broke his cover to run to the edge of the foyer, watching as the two sunk into the abyss. They were sure to fall near the Cauldron, but whether they'd be alive or not was something he'd have to go lower to check. _"Can this day…Oh FUCK it."_ Not even wasting the willpower to curse this day, Alex dashed for the nearby stairs and climbed down them until he was near the lift leading to the Cauldron.

Instead of getting on it, he opted to hop down to one of the extended alcoves to stay hidden. Kneeling down, he barely peeked his head past the edge of the alcove and found Ragna and Jin had survived their fall standing up. _"…Oh yeah, I should've remembered Ragna was this resilient."_ It was not something worth sighing in relief over though, as the two were still at each others throats.

The two locked blades, and Ragna glanced to the right and grumbled "Shit, and the Cauldron's right there!" Jin exclaimed while grinding Yukinesa against his brother's blade "All that matters is our battle, brother! I won't stop until I've torn you limb from limb!"

"Goddamnit Jin, the only way you could anymore annoying is if there were two of you!"

Ragna and Jin both suddenly flinched, their faces turning pale as they grit their teeth in a scowl. The two parted their blades and started looking around. Alex mumbled "What's going on? The Cauldron hasn't even…" He would quickly come to recognize why the two were nervous, as a familiar, cold sensation of power dug into his spine and sent a chill spiraling down it.

" _N-No…He's here too?!"_

Heavy, metallic footsteps grew louder and louder with every foot this person got closer. A warrior bathed in white, it didn't take long for him to emerge from the darkness he obscured himself and reveal who he was to those that watched. He is Hakumen, the white void, the cold steel, the just sword. As his eyeless mask stares straight at Ragna and Jin with no sign of emotion, he takes his blade in hand and draws it from his sheath, remarking colder than any ice Jin could ever produce "So, you have finally arrived, Dark One…"

The blade grinded inside of the sheath, like a butcher sharpening his knife, before being pulled and thrust out at the ground towards Ragna's feet. The Grim Reaper stood at his side and held his sword in both hands before his waist. His arms were trembling, his knees threatened to give way, but he wondered in anger "Just who the hell are you?!"

Hakumen was resolute in stating "My identity is none of your concern, for soon I shall sever the threads of our intertwining fates."

Ever since Hakumen stepped onto the scene, Jin's attitude shifted entirely. He gripped the side of his head and clutched his chest, exclaiming with a harrowing glare towards the man "This sensation…Why does it feel so familiar?!" Hakumen was silent at first as he slowly drew his blade above his head and began summoning frosted energy into it. The whole area of the Cauldron trembled, dust once settled falling from the ceilings and walls, all in the wake of this man's unbridled power.

"Begone, you cursed shadow…" The man's comment seemed directed towards Jin, whose legs were now trembling more than Ragna's. Yet, with a cackling grin he exclaimed "Y-Your power's incredible! But only I'm allowed to kill BROTHER! You can just disappear!" He was ready to draw Yukinesa, even though he and Ragna both knew that his Nox Nyctores didn't even compare to the power of Hakumen's.

"Shit…! Why can't I move?!" Ragna exclaimed as he gnashed his teeth together into a scowl, his eyes unable to look away from the death that hastily approached.

Rising to his feet in a jolt, Alex drew his sword and suddenly yelled "STOP!" before he leapt straight onto the battlefield. Hakumen brought his blade down with all he had, Alex intercepting it's path and slamming the dull side of his own against it's power. He had to put everything he had into holding back Hakumen's near indomitable might, and the impact split the collected energies across the air like a pair of wings.

"Oh come on, another one?! What woodworks are you bastards popping out of?!" Ragna exclaimed in exasperation. Hakumen flipped his blade around and held it behind himself in a reverse grip, remarking in a curious tone "That blade…I see, so you are his successor."

Hakumen took a couple steps back, raising his head to glare at Ragna and Jin while Alex stood his ground with blade swung out. "And you would side with the Dark One…A pity. Now you too, shall share in his fate." Alex glanced around, sensing the animosity aimed at him from all other parties. In turn, Ragna, Jin and Hakumen were raring to take each other down at any given moment. What was already a complicated scenario just got much, MUCH worse…

" _I fucking HATE my life…"_ Was all Alex could groan…

 _Next Time: Under Heavens Destruction_


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23: Frozen Shadows**

In his attempt to be a good Samaritan in this otherwise dreadful scenario, Alex has now found himself trapped in a life-or-death four-way battle between himself, Ragna the Bloodedge, Jin Kisaragi, and the legendary Hakumen. Saving the dueling siblings from the calm wrath of one of the Six Heroes was just a momentary reprieve, as the boy's presence only served to increase the aggression radiating off all around him.

" _Grrrr, this is no time to be cursing your life Alex! If you let Hakumen get anywhere near Ragna and Jin, there's no way either of them will survive."_

Alex shook his head and focused on Hakumen, who had begun to swing his sword back ready to cut right through the boy to get to Ragna. Lashing his own blade against the air and igniting it, the boy swung his head up and grit his teeth, then brought the sword down in front of him in a crimson blur. A wave of fire struck Hakumen's body dead center and made the man hop five feet back, traces of embers falling off his pristine armor.

The posture and strength pooled into his blade was unbroken, and he swung out with so much force a room-filling gale was kicked up. Some of it lashed into Alex's gut and hit him harder than most punches he had felt, as the air was discharged from his mouth like a hard bullet. With a couple steps back, Alex laid a hand on his abdomen and held the sword at his hip, a cold sweat forming on his forehead.

" _This power is unreal…! Even amongst the Six Heroes, Hakumen is far beyond them all!"_

Hakumen began his slow approach towards the boy and his targets, one of whom was not making things any easier for Alex by swinging his sword down from behind. Catching it's presence by the draft it pushed down in it's descent, Alex flipped his sword into a backhanded grip and intercepted the blade, glancing over his shoulder to find Ragna being his assailant.

"You kidding me?! I just saved your sorry ass!" Alex exclaimed, becoming even more frazzled as Ragna grit his teeth and told him "Don't give me that shit! You look pretty damn suspicious yourself!"

" _Oh for the love of…Is this because of residual memories from past time loops?!"_

Luckily, or perhaps not so, Jin was still around to occupy Ragna's attention. Seeing a perfect chance to strike, Jin swung Yukinesa down at his brother's right arm while declaring with a voice as rough as sandpaper "Don't think you can ignore me…BROTHER!"

Ragna grumbled and swung his hand up to grip the center of the icy blade, which caused his hand to start freezing over. "Goddamn it, Jin…!" The man was more annoyed than angry at this point, and he clenched his fingers tightly around the blade and erupted darkness around it.

With a pleased smile and an intoxicated glare, Jin proclaimed with the utmost glee "That's more LIKE it brother…! I'll put an end to your miserable existence, then cut the destroyer down as well!"

Alex winced and thought _"Oh great. How does HE know about that?!"_ The presence of Hakumen beside him delayed any investigations on the matter and the boy spun his head back. Tightly gripping his sword, he sent a blast of fire towards the dueling brothers to send them away so he could focus all attention on Hakumen.

The man stabbed his sword forth, the tip colder than an iceberg, and met with the blunt side of Alex's blade. The flames surrounding it dispersed and a ring of white frost spread itself around the tip of Ookami. Alex slammed his left hand against the back of his blade for support and dug his feet into the ground, glancing back to find Jin and Ragna fighting each other. Puffing out a slight breath of relief, Alex looked up at Hakumen's mask, his heart feeling as though it was being suffocated by his rib cage.

"L-Listen to me, Hakumen…!" His voice came forth softer than a whisper, and the man paid them no heed. With a couple steps back, Hakumen swung his blade out in an arc, making sure the center of his blade struck against Alex's own. The boy's body slanted back, the knee bones snapping into alignment hard enough to pinch the nerves underneath. As Alex grimaced, Hakumen leaned forward and rammed his shoulder into the bottom of his blade, dislodging the boy from the ground and sending him hurtling past the middle of Ragna and Jin's fight.

Their blades were mere seconds away from his neck as he flew by, and a gulp of saliva made the distance ever so closer. His passing made the two's battle come to a brief pause as they turned and watched the boy plow into rocky wall. Jin reacted more to his presence by grinning from ear to ear and lashing Yukianesa towards the ground.

"Perish…DESTROYER!"

Ragna took a couple steps forward in an instance and punched Jin in his right shoulder, shifting his swing three inches to the left and making the ensuing ice wave crash along the wall beside Alex. The boy's heart skipped a beat and his right arm hairs stood on end from how close in proximity the trail of ice along the wall now was.

Jin's right arm limped a little but he tossed Yukianesa over to his other, turning without missing a beat so he could swing his blade at Ragna.

"Oh don't worry brother, I haven't forgo…GUHHH!"

Ragna swung his left arm up off the ground and summoned a serpentine head of darkness to plow into Jin's stomach, dislodging the air from his chest. Said head continued to extend until Jin was hammered against the wall, where the darkness spread out around his body while Ragna started to grip his hand together.

"Time for you to go to sleep, you big crybaby…!" He growled under gritted teeth.

Pulling himself from the wall, Alex laid a hand on the side of his head and shook it, looking up to find Hakumen in the middle of bringing his sword down towards Ragna's exposed arm.

Widening his eyes, the boy yelled "Ragna, watch out!" and the Grim Reaper nudged his head just a little towards him to let out a quiet "Huh?" before noticing the cold steel of Ookami entering his line of sight.

"SHIT!" Ragna jerked his arm back too little, too late, as the blade sliced through the tendons of his wrist and left blood leaking like a molasses waterfall down onto his glove. The Grim Reaper then swung his sword up in his other hand to block Hakumen's fierce downward cut.

"Bastard…Goddamn it, what did you do…?! This wound ain't healing!"

Hakumen pushed forward with all his strength, grabbing his blade in both hands and making Ragna's legs give way. His ensuing words taunted the Grim Reaper with a stern harshness "What's the matter, Dark One? Is THIS all the strength you can muster?!"

With blood dripping off his right fingertips, Ragna exclaimed "Shut the hell up, you masked bitch!" and then forced his hand to clench so he could throw a punch at Hakumen's gut. The man let out an impressed grunt as he hopped a foot away and then jabbed his right foot out, kicking Ragna hard in the abdomen. Even though the Grim Reaper was sent flying into one of the pillars supporting the left hallway, Hakumen made the kick seem like it took no effort at all. The man then stamped his foot down and held his sword at the ground.

"You disappoint me…" He said with a whisper as rough as gravel.

Alex stayed near the wall and glared at the battle unfolding. No, it was not a battle, it was something more akin to a hopeless slaughter. Ragna and Jin stood no chance, especially not after they wore themselves down a little bit beforehand.

" _And I can't do anything to help! As I am now, Hakumen's way out of my league. I mean, I guess I could use Phoenix Form…"_ A turn to the left reminded him of the Cauldron, and he bit his lower lip before continuing _"But I still need that for Nu! Goddamn it! If I waste energy on Hakumen just to kill Ragna and Jin, then Nu will kill me anyways! And if I let Hakumen take care of things then Terumi will know it, which means Shina will suffer next time and…and…GODDAMN IT I can't keep doing this!"_

He slammed one fist into the wall behind him, directing some anger towards Teurmi's cruel machinations, but directing the rest of it towards himself for being such a fool. _"There HAS to be some way to end this now! A way that lets Ragna and Jin live, a way to stop Nu for good, and a way to turn the tables on Teurmi…Even asking for a solution to one of those feels impossible, but damn it…If there is a way to make them all work at the same time, then I HAVE to figure it out!"_

Leaning forward and squinting his eyes shut, Alex concentrated inside of the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind. The mockeries of many beings encountered throughout his lifetime echoed within, rightfully calling him an idiot.

" _I am stupid. I have made so many mistakes I can't even BEGIN to count them all…But it's not like I don't know a lot. I've just been too damn STUBBORN to utilize any of it until now. But I have to do this! This isn't about me, but…"_ Shina's smiling face flashed before his mind, and he twisted his head a little to the right and cracked a tense scowl.

" _For something much, MUCH more important! Please, PLEASE, think of SOMETHING, anything!"_

As the boy was deep in concentration, Hakumen was approaching a defensive Ragna with blade at the ready. Noticing the boy in thought, however, brought a strong enough inkling of curiosity to the hero's mind that his iron will broke sufficiently enough for Jin to assault him with a rising wave of spiked ice from behind.

The ice shattered against Hakumen's armor and the man turned aside, watching as Jin gave him a stern, fierce glare while holding Yukinesa just right outside of his hilt. Frost lingered in the air from the blade's presence, contrasting the burning rage radiating from the Major's body.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, but only **I** will be allowed to kill my pathetic brother! An obstacle like you can just GET OUT OF MY WAY!" Biting his teeth down with all he had, Jin ripped Yukianesa free from it's confines and lashed it against the air, sending three thick blades of ice one after the other at Hakumen.

The armored man spun his blade into a backhanded grip in his right hand and laid his left one against the open air, summoning a frosty-blue runic barrier. Each ice blade crashed against the barrier and broke into dust.

"I am the white void. I am the cold steel. I AM the just sword…."

Jin growled hard enough to ripple the muscles of his esophagus before summoning a thick icicle shaped platform for him to ride on. He charged straight at Hakumen's barrier and grinded the icicle up against it, failing to make the man even budge. He then pulled Yukianesa from his ride and sliced at the man's mask, brushing against the top of the barrier. Time seemed to stop as the barrier departed and Hakumen slammed his open palm into Jin's chest. The Major flew back into the wall and dropped to the ground after leaving an imprint. Hakumen then raised his sword above his head and charged a wintery energy into it.

"With blade in hand shall I reap the sins of this world, and cleanse it in the fires of destruction!"

Getting back to his feet as fast as he could, Jin held Yukianesa diagonally at the hip and formed a bow of ice, aiming straight at the blade as it started to come down. "Grrr…! I am not going to LOSE to you! ARROWS OF ICE!" He fired an arrow so sharp and cold it could've cooled the very sun, and yet when it smashed into the descending Ookami it was nothing more than a toothpick waiting to be snapped in two.

Hakumen broke through without losing a drop of energy, and the moment his blade made contact with the ground all that energy rammed into Jin's body and drove him back against the wall. His backbones could be heard crunching down, and he fell to his knees with only Yukianesa for support a moment later. The tip of Hakumen's blade waited for him right against his neck, and he finished his speech with a deep, loathing tone.

"I AM Hakumen, and never again shall I cast your worthless shadow, Jin Kisaragi."

Laying a hand on the side of his face while forcing his body upright, Jin murmured in shock "H-Hakumen…of the Six Heroes?! Impossible…Y-You're lying to me!" Hakumen pulled his blade back and held it before his waist in both hands. As he took that stance, Jin's eyes widened and his stability faltered. His right leg caved in and the knee dropped to the ground, with Hakumen glaring at him with an ire stronger than whatever he had towards Ragna.

"Look at you…Barely able to stand, unable to even utilize the true power of Yukianesa…How can one be so pathetic?"

"P-Pathetic…?" Jin's eyes magnetized to the bottom of his brows, giving off a glare deep with scorn. He pulled Yukianesa from the ground, letting out a scream born of issues too numerous to name "Don't you DARE look down at me!"

Jin swung with all he had, but Hakumen didn't even have to move. The moment Yukianesa struck Ookami, the latter's ability to dispel the power of Ars Magus caused the ice that composed the blade to dissipate into a dry mist that couldn't even wet the wings of a fly. Jin froze, left pointing a harmless handle towards the indomitable warrior, words barely stammering forth from his lips.

Hakumen sheathed his sword and plunged his hand through the mist to grab Jin's throat, hoisting him into the air like some disobedient child. With an iron grip, Hakumen slammed Jin against the wall and made him go quiet with the jolt to the head the impact left.

"It all ends here…Our eternal battle, and our eternal suffering. But you shall not be here to see it come to a close. You are not WORTHY of anything, Jin Kisaragi."

Jin, even in the midst of coughing up blood, looked down at Hakumen's masked face and remarked in a nasally tone "N-No way…Y-You couldn't possibly be-"

"GRAAAAAAH!" Ragna came charging in from behind, trying to ambush Hakumen with a one-handed slash. Fitting, as it took just one hand to stop such a weak strike, and Hakumen in turn dug his claw-like fingernails into the blade to show just how brittle it was to him.

"How curious…You would defend this fool after he tried to kill you?" Hakumen slowly twisted the blade to the right, which in turn pivoted Ragna's wrist and made him wince in pain. With a pained roar, the Grim Reaper declare "Saving that bastard?! You gotta be shitting me! After everything he's done, I'd be more than glad to watch him get torn to shreds!"

Gritting his teeth hard enough to strain his gums, Ragna's body was surrounding with the darkness from his Azure while he exclaimed with all he had "I don't care who you say you are! Go crawl back under whatever crusty old rock you came out of, this fight will be settled by us, NOT YOU!"

Ragna pulled his blade free to Hakumen's surprise, then unraveled his sword into a scythe and wrapped the half of his body that wielded it in a thick, cancerous darkness. "Prepare to meet an eternity of darkness, you masked bitch!" As the dark energies formed a fanged wing around Ragna's scythe, Alex opened his eyes and looked at Hakumen, who didn't even flinch at the terrifying power of the Black Onslaught about to be unleashed upon him.

" _Wait a second…"_

The atmosphere went pitch black in Alex's vision, devouring all but himself and Hakumen, who was wreathed in a foggy white light. Hakumen had proven through the few battles the boy had seen him in that he was a peerless warrior who very few could stand against, that much is undeniable for sure, but…

" _Most of his prowess can be attributed to his Nox Nyctories…Demon Killer: Ookami, a blade whose mere touch is able to negate Ars Magus…and by extension magic like my elements. The ice of Yukianesa, Ragna's ability to regenerate…So long as Ookami is present, neither of those powers will work. It's strength is so great, that I doubt even a Life Link could overpower it. Which means…"_

Clenching his fists against his hips as the darkness breaks, Alex's fears were gone, replaced with a determination he would otherwise find fleeting in these dire times.

" _It was right there in front of me this whole time. Hakumen is the key to overpowering Nu!"_

In the face of the Black Onslaught, Hakumen ripped Jin from the wall and spun around, throwing him straight into Ragna's chest to disrupt his ultimate attack. The brothers tumbled together until both were at the edge of the Cauldron. The darkness left Ragna's body and the sword was flung from his hand, where it dropped down and stabbed Jin through the chest as he laid beside Ragna. It missed most vital organs but left a pool of blood oozing out of his back.

"D-Damn it!" Jin declared with the utmost pain coursing through his body, while Ragna struggled to drag himself off the ground. As he reached for his blade, he told Jin "H-Hold still you crybaby, this is going to sting a little!" He didn't get the chance to wrench the blade free though as Hakumen's overwhelming power pulsed out and paralyzed him in place.

Hakumen gripped the blade and swung it out beside his right hip, walking towards the two while remarking "You shall no longer dictate my fate, Dark One. This nightmare shall end…with BOTH of your demises!"

"Son of a bitch!" Ragna and Alex both declared, with the boy's being the quieter of the two. Alex glared at Hakumen and hastened to come up with an idea _"I still need to get Ragna and Jin out of the way! Come on, there has to be something I can do!"_

As though at Alex's command, a series of golden runes descended from the sky and surrounded Hakumen, binding him in place and distorting his form in and out of existence. The man growled in anger "Damn you Grimalkin! How dare you get in my way!"

Alex lowered his head and with a short breath murmured "Oh thank goodness, Kokonoe's taking care of that…" His eyes widened and with a bite onto the lower right part of his lip he thought _"Wait no, this is the WORST time for her! Think fast, think fast…!"_

Shaking his head around, Alex locked his gaze onto his right pocket and reached for the Gaia Temporis. Pulling it out over his head, the boy clenched the stone tight around his fingers and lunged at the bindings threatening to teleport Hakumen away. Ragna, once relieved that the 'masked bitch' would soon be gone, would find himself flabbergasted at Alex flying into view with the expression of a desperate maniac on him as he thrust the Gaia Temporis at Hakumen's bindings.

"Oh NOW what's this nut job doing?!"

Even if Alex had been receptive to the Grim Reaper's noisy input, the decision was already long made. The Gaia Temporis glowed upon contact with Hakumen's bindings, and they shattered just a moment later. As Alex swerved his body and fell towards the ground, golden shards scattered around him, he cracked a smile and chuckled.

" _Ha, serves you RIGHT, Kokonoe!"_

The moment Alex's feet touched the ground, Ragna yelled at him "Oh come on! That bastard was being shown the door until YOU had the wise idea of letting him back in!" The boy rolled his eyes and stuffed the Gaia Temporis in his pocket, drawing his blade to hold Hakumen's rising slash at bay.

" _Tsk, you don't miss a stride do you?! Getting real sick of thinking on my feet here!"_

Ragna gripped his blade and Alex could hear the squishy noises coming from him trying to wiggle it free, while Jin let out a combination of giggles and cries of pain. With a disgusted grimace, Alex glanced over his shoulder at the ground and noticed the remnants of Yukianesa resting near the Major's hip. Another brilliant idea spawned in the boy's mind, and he swung his left hand back and snapped his fingers.

Drawing upon the frost leaking from the crusted blade, a cold snap flew forth and enveloped the feuding family in a thick cage of ice. Ragna pulled his hand away from his blade and looked ready to call upon the power of the Azure, but he was once again too late. Now he was stuck in that fierce pose, which made him look more like an idiot than a battle-hardened warrior. Alex didn't linger on the poses the two were in as he flung the ice towards the wall above the right hallway, decreasing the temperature of it's bottom so it'd stick in place for a long, long time.

He then breathed a sigh and turned towards Hakumen, who had stepped back to give his blade the proper distance needed to have it's tip thrust near Alex's neck. The boy dispelled his sword and gulped, his pupils shrinking and his arms swung up beside his head.

"E-Easy Hakumen! I-I just want to talk…!" There was a heavy lump in his throat as his voice came out uncertain and a little hoarse. Hakumen stayed so resolute and unmoving that he couldn't even be heard breathing. That made it difficult to discern just what was on his mind.

"Successor of the Overlord…Why have you chosen to side with the Dark One?"

"W-Why have I chosen?" It was a question he was not expecting to say the least. With another gulp to rid himself of what doubts he could, Alex spoke not to gratify the man with what he wanted to hear, but to hope that instead he would respect his honesty.

"Ragna the Bloodedge doesn't deserve to die…At least, not for the reasons YOU are judging him for."

Alex stared at him with brows lowered, but they started twitching as though wanting to go back up upon feeling as though Hakumen was giving a judgmental stare in return.

"His presence is a stain that poisons the very flow of casualty itself. You, of all people, would be willing to let such a calamity continue to exist in this world?"

"…Your mistake is believing that I view the world the same way as the original Overlord does." Alex mustered the bravery to state. He fully embraced staring the man in the face with all his certainty, and he laid a hand on his chest as he explained "He would probably look at Ragna and think the same way you do. That he's a threat to the world, a disease that must be cleansed…"

Shaking his head a little, he closed his eyes and remarked "But **I** see things differently. I look at Ragna, and I see a man dealt a terrible hand at life who is doing everything he can to rebel against his own fate. He's directed that rage towards the NOL, certainly, but he's never struck me as the type of person who would willingly destroy the entire world."

"Willing or not, it is HIS body that is used as the catalyst for the creation of the Black Beast. So long as HE is alive, this nightmare will never end. And your empathy towards this monster only serves to fuel this cycle…"

Opening his eyes, Alex replied "As far as this goes, this is the one decision I've made that WON'T fuel the cycle of calamity that plagues this world."

"…Hmph, I am well aware of what you have done to tamper with the fabric of time."

"Y-You are…?" Alex blinked a couple times, and the tip of Hakumen's blade nudged closer to his neck as the man stated "Inklings of memories past…Memories that aren't 'my' own, I have felt them clearly during my time in the Boundary. This isn't the first time you've stood in defense of the Dark One, and it appears you don't intend to make this the last."

Hakumen's gauntlets clinked as he gripped his blade in both hands and drew it back, aiming it so one clean stab would be all he needed to rip through Alex's throat. The boy could feel a sharp line drawn along his neck skin as though Hakumen was preparing to carve him like a roasted turkey.

"You're seriously going to try and kill me? This is how far you're willing to go with your justice, Hakumen?"

"I will do what is necessary for this world. Even if it means slaying the successor of a former comrade. Had you the courage to cast aside all personal feelings regarding the Dark One, and chosen to stand beside me to put an end to this nightmare…This would not be your fate."

"…Even if I die, it won't end these time loops. In fact, the moment I die it'll probably start all over again. Even your Ookami can't negate that."

"That is a chance I am willing to take. If your words are nothing more than an attempt to still my blade, then your death will still free the Dark One from his temporary confinement. Now, are those your last words, successor?"

Alex closed his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nostrils. He could only find it disturbing that he had become numb to the concept of his own demise, even if deep down it was something he wished for every day. Yet, this was one time he could not die. He HAD to make this timeline be the one where he succeeded. Too much was at stake for him TO fail.

Slowly lowering his hands until they were at the hips, Alex creaked his eyelids open and gave Hakumen a solemn glance.

"You have the right to know why I'm even here, Hakumen. It's funny coming from me, but this is one time I'd like to settle things with words…Not with violence."

"…I will give you three minutes."

Hakumen's aggression stilled just a little, giving Alex the breathing room he needed to explain himself. But he had to abridge the story, otherwise what little patience the man gave would be for naught.

"I came here with another person to try and find an artifact piece that when pieced together, will lead us to a powerful object that will help save her people from a tyrant. We came to this world around the time the Black Beast was formed, and Takemikazuchi was to destroy Kagutsuchi. To save both our lives, I used my Gaia Temporis to impart ourselves into the time loop with our memories intact, but we ended up separated as well."

"The time you remember seeing me was the first time I had gotten here, where I encountered Murakumo Unit 13, Nu, being born from the Cauldron. The artifact piece was placed inside of her body, and a being who has been tormenting us on other worlds has infected that piece and given Nu more power than she'd normally have. And in turn, it has created a stronger Black Beast in the past."

Hakumen interrupted the conversation with a little contemplation on the matter "The original Overlord did say that the Black Beast was stronger than it should have been. And a part of me recalls a Black Beast with a somewhat different appearance. Very well, you may continue."

"All I've been trying to do is destroy Nu and reunite with my friend, but now things have gotten…complicated, to say the least."

The last part would be the hardest to explain, only because of Hakumen's last meeting with the man in question.

"…I-I ran into Yuuki Terumi."

Hakumen's body tensed up, and the grip on his blade tightened enough that any weaker blade would snap like a twig. "Terumi…? Impossible! I made certain that monster would forever be sealed within the Boundary!"

Alex insisted on shaking his head and reaffirming his remark, telling the Six Hero "There's no mistaking that pale skin, yellow eyes, and green hair. I KNOW that was Terumi I saw."

Returning to a stoic state but with an ever-present underlying hatred in his voice, Hakumen pressed for answers "And what occurred with him, successor?" Alex was glad to oblige, feeling that for the rest time the two were on the same wavelength.

"Naturally, I tried to kill the bastard! …But he quickly used that sharp tongue of his to turn the tables on me. He said if I don't kill Ragna and Jin, then next time loop he would mercilessly torment my friend."

"…And yet you refuse to kill them."

"Even with these circumstances, how CAN I? You already heard my opinion on Ragna and Jin, well…" Alex scratched the side of his head and with a lofty chuckle murmured "I-I don't need to say anything to his biggest judge."

Hakumen growled through his mask, showing a hint of impatience that Alex picked up on and quickly stammered "O-Oh right." After a light cough, he lowered his arms and continued with a more melancholic tone "So, according to Rachel anyways, my friend's been suffering a lot out there. A-All because of my time loops taking their toll, no doubt…If Terumi ever got his grubby hands on her then…then I can't even imagine WHAT he'd do to her!"

His voice starting to break, Alex's legs gave in and he began a sluggish descent towards the ground. Planting his hands down and on his knees, he kneaded at the dusty floor and his eyes started watering. Hakumen kept the blade pointed at the back of his neck, listening as he gave a genuine plea for help.

"I-I can't do this alone, ok?! I'm a shitty Elemental Overlord and my decisions have now dragged the most special person in my life into a whirlpool of distress and despair, and so long as Terumi and Nu are breathing down my neck I can't do ANYTHING to help her! So please, I beg of you Hakumen…"

He swung his tear dripped face up and let loose a high-pitched cry "HELP ME!" The boy sniveled for a few more seconds while Hakumen stood silently looking down upon him. There was no guessing what was on his mind, for it was as much of a cage as the armor he wore.

After what felt like an eternity, Hakumen's blade rose and could soon be heard going into his sheath.

"Stand up."

"H-Huh?" Alex thought he was hearing things. The haziness of his vision made it difficult to discern reality for what it was. Hakumen held his right hand out, projecting the tranquility of a sage.

"You have some semblance of pride as a hero. Do not sully what little remains begging on your knees for help."

Alex's hand was drawn to Hakumen's, and he helped him get onto his feet. Fluttering his eyelids to send the tears away, the boy murmured in confusion "You…you'll help me?" Alex looked down at Hakumen's hand. Feeling it now, he was surprised how warm his touch was despite the cold exterior he gave off. That was a moment that would stick in Alex's mind despite how fleeting it was, as Hakumen stepped around the boy and walked towards the edge of the Cauldron, gripping Ookami tightly in his right hand.

The Cauldron was activating, the boiling fires churning as the chrysalis that held Nu rose ever-closer to the surface. Drawing his blade, Hakumen swung it at the Cauldron and remarked "This doll, born of steel and flesh, appears to have more of a hold on the destructive impulses of the Black Beast than I had realized…However, should the doll's demise do nothing to end this cycle, then I will not hesitate to turn my blade upon the Dark One."

Alex stood beside Hakumen and look him in the mask. He could tell he was serious in what he said, but none of that mattered at the moment. With a proud smile, his heart felt light as a feather over managing to get Hakumen's assistance.

With a close-eyed nod, Alex whispered "Thank you, Hakumen" and then turned towards the Cauldron. Sword drawn, he watched as the chrysalis locked into place where it always does, and the center of it opened up to signify Nu's awakening into the world once more. The doll floated out into view, the bells around her cape chiming the coming doomsday she had planned to unleash. Opening her eyes, she looked down at Alex and Hakumen and greeted the boy with a sinister grin.

"Oh, you came back! How exciting! Guess I didn't nail it in enough how hopelessly outclassed you are, hehehe!" Only she could say such things with the giddiness of a high-school girl. Alex didn't relay a response and stood still, waiting for Nu to acknowledge Hakumen's presence.

The doll floated above the Cauldron fifteen feet away from the armored man, who held his sword at his side and met her curious glare with a subdued ferocity. Nu's grin widened as a ecstatic chill shook her body whole.

"And just who is the latest victim you've dragged out of the woodwork this time? Heheh, whoever he is, you better hope he can put up a better fight than your sorry ass can!"

Alex grumbled under his breath, causing Nu to giggle at his supposed futility. Then she glanced at Hakumen, whose body clinked as he spread his legs and got into position to fight. Glaring at the doll, he remarked "It has been a long time, beating heart of the demon…"

Nu perked her brows up and fluttered her eyelids a few times, saying in a puzzled tone "Huh? Have we met before?" With a smile of sadistic certainty, she stated "No, I'd have remembered making someone like you scream for my pleasure!"

Hakumen's body began to glow, bathed in a pure, wintery aura that representation a serene exertion of power. The chill in Nu's body dug itself in deeper, this time causing her grinning teeth to clatter together while her body became rigid with goosebumps.

"W-Wait a second…This presence…T-This power…I-I HAVE felt this before." For the first time in her many lives, Nu knew what fear was like. Her eyes widened, her skin got even paler, and a cold sweat trickled down her forehead. With her cheeks as clear and red as her eyes, what ensued was not a stammer born of fear, but an outcry of pure, blistering rage.

"You…! You're one of those BASTARDS who split Ragna and I's glorious union apart! Just who…WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

Hakumen's power shook the very foundation of the Cauldron, dislodging a few loose bricks from the ceiling far above. Unwavering in his heated stare, Hakumen placed his blade vertically before his body and his hair spread out like the multiple tails of a kyuubi.

"I AM the white void. I AM the cold steel. I AM the just sword. With blade in hand shall I reap the sins of this world, and cleanse it in the fires of destruction! I AM Hakumen, the END has **COME!** " With a brief release of his power, Hakumen was ready to put an end to this nightmare, and after transforming into his Phoenix Form Alex spread his wings and had but one thing to say to Nu.

"Let me ask you…Does a machine like yourself ever experience fear?!"

Nu grit her teeth and lowered her head, grumbling angrily towards those before her "You bastards…Keep getting in my way…Trying to take my precious Ragna away from me!" The Murakumo sword slammed down behind her, merging with her body while the artifact piece activated. She came out of the transformation with her head swung forward and saliva strung between her snarling teeth as she yelled "I'M SICK OF YOU ALL! JUST DIE ALREADY!"

 _Next Time: Kill the Despair_


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24: Awakening the Chaos V: The Void of Chaos**

The artifact being inside of Nu allowed her to experience the joys of bonding with Ragna over and over again. For her, that repetition was the equivalent of heaven. Yet, because she was starting to be used to the pattern of getting what she wants so many times, she knew nothing of what it was like to be denied the pleasurable splendors that validated her otherwise tortured existence.

But now, one of the Six Heroes, who had separated her from Ragna and forced her to wait nearly a century to become one with him again, stood before her, intending to make that separation permanent. She could not taunt such a foe, for she knew nothing about them. She knew she could not kill him, for his strength was immeasurable. He was the unconquerable mountain, the unrelenting blizzard, he is Hakumen.

And gazing upon his peerless presence only made Nu's heart churn with an inferno of pure rage. She scowled, wearing down the enamel of her teeth with how tightly she grit them. Her eyes turned towards Alex Whiter, who she knew was responsible for this turn of events by the smug grin on his grimy little face. In her mind, now he had gone from a miniscule pest, to someone she HAD to make pay.

"GRAAAAAAAH!" She bent down and slammed a hand against a seal formed below her feet, opening twenty rifts around her body that sent energy swords flying at blinding speeds towards Alex. The boy raised his brows and let forth a tiny chuckle, not moving an inch as Hakumen swung Ookami out before his body and sliced every sword that came his way. The first blade turned into a miniature black sphere wrapped in a white veil, swallowing the others in a vacuum stronger than a tornado.

Nu grit her teeth and pushed her body forward, warping from above the Cauldron to directly before Hakumen in a millisecond. Her reappearance distorted the fabric of reality and shook the air as she brought her blade right leg swinging right towards Hakumen's chest. Raising his left gauntlet to summon a small barrier, he blocked the strike and froze her in place, giving him ample time to grapple her leg from the air and toss her over his head until he was able to slam her back first against the ground.

He then brought his sword above his head and swung it down with all he had, Nu rolling back to avoid it and the ensuing low, horizontal sweep Hakumen took a step forward to perform. Nu got up in a hunched pose with a scowl, then let forth a gasp as the ground below her heated up. Alex snapped his fingers and summoned a plume of fire that Nu slid to the right to evade, only for him to swing his other hand up and snap those fingers to meet her movements with another plume of fire.

Resting between both fires, Nu crossed her arms before her chest and created two large rifts that began to call forth two gigantic blades. Her focus was broken by Alex using his blade to send forth a slicing wave of air, which left behind turbulence that Hakumen used to increase his running speed as he went after Nu.

The Murakumo used her bladed arms to hold back Alex's attack, which dragged her back into the stone wall. The back of her legs kept her from fully impacting with it, but a moment later Hakumen rammed his shoulder past the top of her arms and into her chest and slammed her into the wall. She bounded off it and her arms spread out, her mouth letting loose a pained, frustrated gasp.

She looked at Hakumen as the man calmly held his blade behind his back, and with her lips quivering from the weight of her scowl she let out a bellowing roar similar to the Black Beast's and spun her body around in an attempt to slice through Hakumen's neck with her right leg. Ookami was swung even faster than either Nu or Alex could see, even as Hakumen put everything he had into the force of the swing.

The moment it crashed against Nu's leg, a shockwave ripped through the air, carrying a violent gale that blurred the two fighters' positions from Alex, who dug his legs into the ground and swung his arms up to avoid being sent flying into the Cauldron. When the gale subsided, Hakumen had been pushed back ten feet while Nu stood exactly where she was before. She grinned, thinking she had overpowered Hakumen's attack.

It was arrogance to the highest degree, and her ears were soon assailed by a rigorous cracking sound. Looking down, she was mortified as cracks spread across her bladed leg until it was too much to bear, and the whole thing shattered apart. Her real leg exposed left her off-balance as the foot dropped to the ground, but she'd have to adapt to the lopsidedness on the spot as Hakumen swung his blade down at her left shoulder. She swung her floating blades before her face to block the sword, giving the man a pale white, piercing glare between a couple of the blades as she did so.

"Grrr…GHHH!" Nu grunted, struggling to hold Hakumen back as he held his blade without having to move it in the slightest. The frustration boiled over to the point that Nu instead chose to try and bring a giant sword down above Hakumen. The man's mask nudged up an inch and he swung his sword behind himself before making a leap back. He didn't hesitate to slice through the blade the moment his feet touched the ground, but Nu had already dashed away from her perilous position.

She dug one of her bladed arms into the air and ripped open a wide rift, a flurry of tiny energy blades flying out towards Hakumen. As he was occupied slicing his blade along the air at a rapid pace, Alex picked up the slack and dashed right at Nu, swinging his left hand up to block her path with a wall of steel wrenched from the ground.

As she ran into it, Alex flicked the same hand before his chest and wrapped the wall around her. She swung her head back and forth as the light was drowned out, and in a panic she shot straight out of her confinement. Spikes lined the innards the moment she was out, and her heart started beating fast. That same organ would skip a beat as she looked up, finding Alex's left knuckles centimeters from her face.

With a thunderous clap erupting forth, he punched Nu so hard the rest of her body lurched up and was laid along the length of Alex's arm, her left leg tucked under his armpit. When Alex heard her skull fracturing and felt blood shooting forth from her nose, he launched her right back down into the steel barricade.

He then spun around, cupping flames into his left hand and leaving a wavy trail in his wake. He clenched the flames together, embers spurting forth between his fingers while his elbow locked into an eighty-degree bend for a moment. He punched out, releasing the flames in the form of a giant fist that fit right through the top of the container and forced Nu to the ground, burning her continuously.

Alex floated above and whisked his right hand around, whipping the flames into a small tornado that got hotter and hotter by being in such a confined space. Nu stood her ground even as her skin was burning up, letting out another angered roar as she swung her arms against the walls and summon two rifts on both sides of Alex's body.

In a second, a giant sword thrust out from the rifts and tried to skewer him together. Alex flew back, the blades scraping through his green soul barrier before they grinded against each other and forced him to plug his ears. The noise was like a cheese grater trying to grate a diamond, and it came out at such a high decibel that Alex's concentration on the flames broke.

Nu took a moment to regenerate her wounds, unaware of Hakumen coming in from behind. With not a glint of hesitation upon his peerless face, the man curved his blade down in both hands and sliced cleanly through Alex's barrier to get to Nu's back. His slash shook the air and made a clean cut through the circumference of the barrier, sending the top half of it flying skyward.

A horizontal gash opened forth in Nu's back, blood spraying out before it leaked slow as molasses down along her rear and legs. She stumbled forward, blood dribbling between her teeth while she began to pant heavy and hard.

"Why…why aren't my wounds healing?!" She screamed out, her voice dripping with confusion and pain. Alex dropped on the ground in front of her and waggled a pointer finger beside his head, smiling with eyelids half open as Nu clenched her teeth down and gave him the most bitter of glares.

"You see Nu, lest you've forgotten…I still had MANY tricks up my-"

Nu widened her eyes and looked over her shoulder as Hakumen stabbed his blade forward, attempting to breech the part of her back directly behind her chest. She glided to the right in an instant and panted, a cold sweat merging with the blood trickling down her chin. Alex widened his eyes and remarked to Hakumen as the man wasted no time raising his sword above his head and drawing in a wintery energy.

"Hey, you don't interrupt someone when they're tau-"

"Do not let your arrogance become a greater enemy than this doll, successor. Keep your focus as peerless as the blade you've been gifted."

Alex blinked twice and then drew his sword to look at it, seeing a grizzled, arrogant grin looking back at him. Closing his eyes and nodding his head, he remarked with a bit of embarrassment "R-Right, now's not the time for that." Then he spread his legs and took the same stance as Hakumen, complete with raising the blade as high above his head as his arms would allow. He drew in fire via a miniature cyclone and twisted his wrists a bit to line up his blade with where Nu was.

Backed against the wall, the frightened doll lashed her arms against the empty air and screamed "No…I won't let this happen! I WON'T LET YOU SEPARATE ME FROM RAGNA AGAIN!" Several rifts tore open the fabric of time-space, releasing an unrelenting barrage of at least several hundred energy blades at her foes.

Hakumen stood still, the blades disappearing the moment they collided with his armored body without leaving nothing more than a scratch. Alex, meanwhile, summoned a steel wall to block the assault aimed at him, not willing to trust the soul shields to protect him. Gritting his teeth, his and Hakumen's combined strength rattled the Cauldron, sending the energy within splashing up against the walls while countless debris dislodged from the ceiling to fall into it.

When the energy condensed into their blades, a shockwave shook the room in one violent burst, while Nu bit her lower lip and summoned even more rifts to try and disrupt their concentration. Hakumen glanced at the doll, and him and Alex had something to say to her.

"This world…"

"Is not your playground!"

" **EMPTY SKY FORM: SUMMER'S ADVANCE!"**

The two brought their blades down in unison, the energy coming out as a thin, singular wave that traveled along the ground at a mere slant. The waves intertwined near Nu, then rose up and slashed through her body in the form of a tall "X" spread from hips to shoulders, continuing to travel out until it sliced through the walls behind. Blood spurted forth from Nu's mouth and the mark on her body. The cut left by Alex healed up in a matter of seconds, but Hakumen's did not. A trace of the artifact piece was exposed by his cut, and the armored man inquired "So, that is the object you seek?"

Alex gave a swift nod of the head, and Hakumen held his sword behind his back in both hands before telling him "Very well, I shall put an end to this." He then began to advance towards Nu. Alex stayed back, keeping his blade up in case Nu tried anything funny. It was better to let Hakumen extract the artifact since he could do so without leaving a scar that would be healed.

Even though Nu was cornered, bent over with her body bleeding all over, the boy couldn't shake the suspicion that she would attempt to pull one over on Hakumen.

" _Not like it would amount to anything. Nothing in her arsenal can breech the Susano'o Unit. Only by becoming the Black Beast would she stand a chance, but she hasn't found out where Ragna is."_

On that thought, Alex squinted his eyes and hyper-focused on Nu's gaze. The very moment she looked towards where Ragna was being kept, he knew she'd go straight for him. Right now though, she flailed her arms around, throwing whatever blades she could at Hakumen. He swung his sword with the lightness one would handle a flyswatter, batting the physical blades away and turning the energy ones into miniature voids.

Nu stepped back until she was pressed against the wall, and Hakumen stopped just a blade's length away from her. Her eyes trembled, and she let out a ghastly wail "Why do you hate me?! I never did ANYTHING to you! All I want…ALL I WANT IS TO BE WITH RAGNA FOREVER! S-So long as we're together, we can be happy! Just Ragna and me, embraced in the warmth of darkness…"

She whimpered and coddled her arms close to her chest, attempting to appeal to the mercy of Hakumen. She underestimated just what type of person this member of the Six Heroes is, as a second later he had Ookami's tip jabbed against the doll's throat.

"Demon born by human hands…I shall grant you the darkness you so desire."

Nu's eyes tremble, her hands cusped against her hipsand her body unable to budge even an inch save for her eyes, which gazed around the room in an erratic fashion. Hakumen pulled back on his blade, keeping it even with his waist so he'd cleave through her chest the moment he let loose.

"Return to the darkest depths of hell from whence you came, nightmare!"

Alex breathed a sigh of relief, but it was a feeling that would soon be squandered as he looked ahead and found Nu glancing towards the upper left side of her face. She cracked a tiny grin, and Alex knew exactly what that meant.

"Hakumen, hurry!" He screamed before leaping off the ground and rocketing forth in a burst of speed. Hakumen began his swing, but with a renewed merriment Nu giggled like a maniac and swung her hands at the ground. A large, foggy crimson portal swung open below Hakumen and nearly swept Alex in as well. In this portal's presence, Hakumen's speed was halved, giving Nu the chance to turn towards the frozen prison Ragna was in.

"There you are Ragna! Now what're you doing up there!"

She kicked off the ground and flew straight ahead, and Alex swerved on a dime to pursue her while gritting his teeth. He shot forth like a bullet, passing Nu and getting in the way of the blades she threw out to free Ragna. He drew his blade in the blink of an eye and sliced the blades in half, a meaty scowl on his face as he tucked his right fist beside his head and thrust it straight towards Nu's face.

She crossed her blade arms up and coated them in darkness, stabbing through the boy's blue shield and digging them into the underside of his arm. Blood oozed onto her blades and she widened her mouth, exclaiming with a salivating tongue "You're not going to stop me! You're too weak to do ANYTHING!"

She threw him at the wall with all she had, but Alex swung his body to the right so his feet could run along it. He wrenched his arm from Nu's blades and bent his legs down, curling the freed hand back into a fist while coating it in steel.

"I'M too weak?!"

He sprang forth from the wall and stopped Nu from firing blades at the frozen cage by punching her square in the jaw.

"YOU'RE the one bleeding all over this time!"

The punch carried all the weight of Alex's body and multiplied it's strength a hundredfold, twisting the skin of Nu's cheek and shattering the left side of her jaw. The broken teeth shot from her mouth, each one carrying with it a rugged streak of blood. Her head pushed as far to the right as it could causing half of her spine to crack. Only when all this unfolded did Nu's body shoot away like a cannonball, spiraling and twisting the very air around her body until she slammed into the front of the chrysalis she emerged from.

With a pitiful squeal, Nu pulled herself from the chrysalis and let the damage to her body be fixed. She leaned forward, floating above the Cauldron in the same spot she was when he battle began, but now she was a complete and utter wreck. There were cracks in her visor, and a moment later it broke off from her face and revealed a ghastly, furious glare.

Alex floated in place, feeling his many souls penetrated wholesale, but instead of a chill going down his spine he grinned from ear to ear. Nu roared and slammed her hands down upon a seal three times as big as her body. Lightning ripped forth from the dimensions and focused upon her body, and the whole Cauldron churned like a raging sea.

"O' silver blade forged in the depths of the beyond, heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way! Lay waste to these BASTARDS, my SWORD OF DESTRUCTION!"

Heaven and hell shook, trembling as a rift grander than any other tore open the fabric of time and space above Nu. Hellfire spat forth, lashing along the length of a thick, silver blade etched with runes of unknown meaning and origin. A blade like that could cleave Kagutsuchi in two without getting a chip on it.

Alex clenched his right fist and set it on fire, but was stopped from charging in by the calm words of Hakumen.

"Successor, remain calm."

The boy looked down, watching as Hakumen drew his blade from the sheath and raised it above his head. He advanced like a man accepting his destiny, slow yet dignified. He stood in the center of the room, which trembled beneath his feet, and raised his blade before his chest. He laid his left hand against the dull side of the blade, reflecting his mask off it's peerless, silver sheen.

"As I said… **I** shall put an end to this."

Hakumen spoke on a personal level, as though this was something he HAD to accomplish on his own. Alex raised his brows and recognized the pose the man took, stammering in a rare moment of genuine awe "T-That's his…!" His body floated back on it's own, observing the majesty that would soon unfold.

As the sword was poised to break through reality and stab Hakumen through, Nu spread her mouth and exclaimed "So…You'll be the first to die, huh?!" Hakumen's response was calm and collected.

"Wandering soul…I shall return you to the darkness, where there shall be no escape. Relish your final moments, for soon you shall be forced to bear the weight of all your sins."

Nu's brows lowered unamused, and she slammed her right hand against the seal to send the blade barreling towards Hakumen. The man basked in a foggy white aura, his hair levitating off the ground. Before his body, cast by the power of both his armor and Ookami, appeared a seal larger than himself. It was thick with runic circles, text etched around the edge while a ripple of violet energy echoed forth from it.

"Retribution…"

The sword touched Hakumen's barrier, and the whole world changed in an instant. Time froze, the environment was turned into a featureless, pale shade of white, and all figures caught up in his void were turned into pitch black effigies amongst this pristine canvas. The fatal sword just inches from his face, Hakumen's body erupted all over as he broke free from the confines of his self-created domain.

" **PERISH EVIL!"**

With a virtuous roar, Hakumen's body was bathed in a bloody veil that tracked the movements of his body and mimicked them perfectly. He swung his sword back and stabbed it forward into Nu's Sword of Destruction in a millisecond. A blood red streak cleaved itself up the length of the sword, splattering blotches of ink along the white sky. The environment quaked as an inky streak slashed itself along the center of the red one, followed by another black one crossing down across that one.

More streaks appeared one at a time, but the rate they were summoned forth increased with each successive one. Eventually the blade and Nu were all covered in this beautifully painted canvas of carnage, while it's peerless artist stood motionless in the same pose until his foes were buried in his masterpiece. These events lasted a moment, but felt like an eternity.

Such divine beauty had to come to an end, and it did so in an instant. All that Hakumen set in motion shattered, his back now turned towards the blade. He took his sword and swung it behind his head, locking it into his sheath. The moment it clicked down, the Sword of Destruction and the chrysalis Nu was born from both shattered with a thunderous echo, one that shook the whole building with a deafening roar.

As the chunks that composed those two things crumbled around her, Nu's eyes widened in shock, focused on Hakumen as he held his arms at his hips and stood triumphant. A moment later, the Murakumo's head jerked back as the front of body erupted with blood, and the artifact piece was carried out by it. Nu held her right hand out, trying to grab and place it back in, but her feeble reach was overtaken by Alex speeding over and swiping it right from the sky.

He gazed at her for a second, noticing that her eyes were squinting, and she was on the verge of tears. Closing his eyes and looking away, the boy grumbled and flew back over to solid ground, while Nu's body returned to normal and began to fall towards the Cauldron. Eyes watering with a diluted blood, Nu looked towards Ragna's frozen cage and reached her hand out, letting out one, pitiful word.

"Rag…na…"

Her body plunged out of sight as Alex landed on the ground beside Hakumen. He held the artifact piece before his chest and with a thought dispelled his Phoenix Form. With a couple shakes he rid the stone of it's blood and spent a short while staring at it.

" _I almost can't believe it's in my hand."_

But there it was, the fourth of five stones, earned after a long-fought struggle against what felt like an impossible foe. After all that has occurred, however, Alex was not so arrogant to believe that he had accomplished this on his own.

"Hakumen…I can't thank you enough for this."

The boy turned his head to look up at the member of the Six Heroes who he owed so much to, only to find that the man had once more taken his hand to the handle of his blade, and his body radiated with an aggression so thick one could choke on it. Alex knew not what his behavior meant until a slow, echoing clap entered his ear drums, along with words of condescending praise.

"Bravo, bravo…You two put on quite a show."

Walking into view as though he was in the middle of a casual stroll was Yuuki Terumi. Alex's heart skipped a beat, and he growled behind gritted teeth. Terumi stopped clapping and lowered his hands, creaking his head up a little while slyly remarking "But that's funny…I don't recall YOU being a part of the script, little Hakky."

Hakumen drew his blade from the sheath and swung it towards Terumi, telling him with a stern, quiet anger "Terumi…It seems you have somehow managed to tether yourself to the realm of mortals once more."

Terumi shrugged his shoulder and cracked his smile, replying in a casual manner "Oh yes, you and the pussycat did a reaaaal number on my last body. That dip in the Boundary stung like a BITCH lemme tell ya! If it wasn't for Takamagahara, I'd have been stuck in that shithole 'til the end of days! But enough about me, how're you holding up in MY old body, little Hakky?"

Terumi punctuated his last remark with a sinister smile, and Hakumen said nothing in turn. Alex glared at him, swinging his left arm out before stating "You're a fool for coming here Terumi! Hakumen's already killed Nu, now he'll kill you too! It's over!"

Terumi puckered his lips and tilted his head up. Tucking his hands deep into his pockets, he murmured "Over…over…Hmmm, no no, I think we have two distinctly different definitions of the word 'over', little BOY!" He lowered his eyelids into a malicious slant, glaring Alex straight in the eyes.

"See, it's not 'over' until **I** stand triumphant at the tip-top of the food chain, watching as all you peons kneel down and GROVEL at my feet, BEGGING for a savior that will never come! And once I've feasted upon your OH SO de-lec-table despair…I STILL won't let you go! Ehehehehe!"

Terumi coiled forward and laid a hand against his face, the other resting against his gut as he felt as though it could burst from laughter. Alex clenched his fist and said "Where do you get off being so arrogant? Your ambition will never come to fruition now!"

Teurmi lurched up, cracking an wide grin as he turned his head and cupped a hand around his ear, tauntingly speaking out "Do my ears deceive me? Is the king of shit talking REALLY trying to say that I'M the arrogant one? News flash dumbass, you haven't won SHIT! I still hold all the cards, and your deck was already pretty thin to begin with!"

Alex scowled, and Terumi lifted his head up with a sigh. Spreading some fingers along his forehead with an uncaring smile, he mumbled "Honestly, should've gotten a disguise as a teacher with all the shit I've had to hammer into your stupid brains!"

"Lemme spell it out for you kid. Do you HONESTLY think little Hakky there managed to free himself from the Boundary without paying a cost?!"

Alex widened his eyes and looked towards Hakumen, who let forth a tired grumble. The boy had wondered why the man hadn't charged at his mortal foe the very moment he appeared, and it seems he was the only one blind to why that was.

"You don't just 'escape the Boundary'. No no no, to pull himself free from that hellhole without an Observer to sustain your existence is unheard of! If it wasn't for him borrowing MY armor, I reckon he'd have died attempting something so STUPID! But I can tell the experience still affected you, little Hakky. I reckon you're using about fifteen…maybe twenty percent of the Susano'o Unit's full power! And after that stunt you pulled to bury that damn doll for good, I can only imagine just a little more exertion is all it'll take to get the Boundary to drag you back kicking and screaming!"

Terumi held his arms out and waved them at his body, taunting Hakumen without mercy "So whaddya say? Wanna go a round for old time's sake?!" His eyes widened in a frenzy, the veins within popping forth out of the sheer delight he was experiencing.

Alex had none of that, and he drew his sword at Terumi and met his insanity with a burning glare. The man paused with a grin, commenting in a humored tone "Ah ah ah, I'd put that sword down if I were you. Last I checked, we still had an agreement, didn't we?"

"Yeah, and I held up my end of the deal!" Alex nudged his head to the right and Terumi's gaze went towards the ice Ragna and Jin were trapped in. The way they were now, Jin still had a frozen puddle of blood behind his body. All Alex needed to do after Terumi saw that was say in a firm, confident voice "I stabbed Jin with Ragna's sword and froze them both in absolute zero conditions. If they are alive after that I'd be DAMNED impressed!"

Terumi smiled and remarked "I will admit, you didn't do a bad job. Even sprinkled in a bit of irony for ol' Jinny there. Aaaah, I bet you could especially get a laugh outta that, eh Hakky?" Hakumen stayed silent, and Terumi shook his head and murmured "You could stand to be less of a stiff. After all, you're going to need all the entertainment you can get when you return to the Boundary!"

Terumi then waggled his finger towards Alex and widened his smile until it was a bridge from ear to ear.

"But you see…then you had to go and overstep your bounds. Killing Unit 13? Teaming up with little Hakky? Correct me if I'm wrong, but when was ANY of that in our contract, boy?!"

Terumi's arrogance made Alex release a burst of power by widening his eyes, but as the man's coat fluttered back he stood still and laid a hand atop his head before saying "Try and scare me all you want, it won't change the fact that I'm the only thing standing between that little bitch and the tidal wave of despair that could be unleashed upon her with just a mere SNAP of my fingers!"

He leaned a bit forward, waving a pair of pinched fingers beside his head while asking "So. Just HOW are you going to make this up to me? Hmmmm…? Come on, I'm WAITING!"

Alex grit his teeth and his mouth wobbled in rage. He looked Terumi in the eyes and saw his cackling grin. He could not tell if he was bluffing or not, but found his behavior to be strange nonetheless.

" _Nu's dead…Noel didn't even become the Successor of the Azure. There's nothing to gain out of this confrontation, so why…"_

He widened his eyes and found that he would have to correct himself. Looking down at the artifact piece, he pondered _"No wait, he HAS to be after this, right? Does that mean he knows it can act as a vessel for the soul, or does he simply want the power that comes with it?"_

It didn't matter what the reason was, either power could not be allowed to fall into Terumi's hands.

" _But, Shina…"_

Alex curled his lips up, uncertain of whether or not Terumi was telling the truth or not. It was a matter too grave to try and test him on.

" _No, I'm so close to putting an end to this nightmare! I HAVE to figure out how to outsmart Terumi_."

Closing his eyes, Alex took in a deep breath and the world around him turned to darkness. Staying calm as time crawled to a standstill, he was careful in weighing his options.

" _Hakumen's barely able to sustain his existence. I don't know how long he could last on his own. If Hakumen attacked Terumi on his own, that MIGHT give me the opening I need to take him down. No, wait…Terumi has his own Azure. He'd just need to activate it and Hakumen wouldn't have enough time to defeat him."_

" _Freezing time is out of the question. Terumi knows I can do that. He'll use Ouroboros to break my hand the moment he sees it go for my right pocket. So…the only way to outwit Terumi is to lower his guard. But to do that, I have to play along with his arrogance, and do something he wouldn't expect that would be to HIS benefit."_

Opening his eyes, time resumed and he looked down at his blade. Terumi swiveled his wrist around and taunted Alex "Come on, I don't have all day!" The boy swerved his gaze away from the blade and looked towards Hakumen.

A spark of inspiration was born in that moment, and on impulse Alex formulated a quick but certain plan to escape Terumi's machinations for good. Gripping his blade tightly, he turned sideways, then thrust the tip of his blade as hard as he could into Hakumen's chest. With all his might, the blade managed to pierce the armor.

Terumi's eyes widened while Hakumen let out a prolonged groan of pain. His body lurched upright, and his right hand shook. Alex's body faced Hakumen, but he didn't look up to face him. He just stood there for a few seconds, waiting as the man started to raise Ookami, murmuring in a tone rife with a feeling of pure betrayal "You…t-traitor…!"

Alex ripped his hand away from the scar in Hakumen's armor, dispelling his sword with a plume of flames. His stare as still and cold as he stepped back, watching as the man took a couple steps forward before collapsing right onto his backside. Ookami was released from his grip, and his body went silent. When all was said and done, Alex turned his gaze at Terumi.

"There. I've killed Hakumen as well. Now, you better hold up your end of the deal, Terumi."

Terumi leaned his head forward, his eyes wide and a grin crossing his face. He lurched forward in a moment, his hat falling off and his hair spiking up. He couldn't control himself and burst into rancorous laughter. He clutched his arms under his chest and reared back, his back being heard cracking from how hard he sudden it was jerked.

Alex stood in place, watching as Terumi got closer while pulling himself upright. His eyes were in tears, and he continued to laugh even as he lorded himself over Hakumen's body. He held his arms in a bend, his laughter turning into an unhinged giggle.

"Oh Hakumen…Heheheh, even **I** didn't see that shit coming! Heheheh…One minute, you were on top of the world! The next? You're just another bottom of the barrel little bitch!" He stamped his left foot down on Hakumen's chest and dug his shoe in, leaning atop his leg as his pupils almost disappeared from how much they shrank.

"Serves you right!" He stamped his foot down like a thunderous hammer and then pulled it off, spinning around to gleam at Alex. He then waggled his right hand before his chest and remarked with a curled smile "Well, it's been fun kid, but playtime's over. You know EXACTLY what I want."

"… _Knew it."_ The boy lowered his brows and looked down at the artifact piece. He then shifted his glance a bit to the left and saw Hakumen's left hand twitching just a little. Looking up at Terumi, the man waved his hand at himself and continued to grin.

"Tell me Terumi, were you ever going to uphold your end of the deal?"

"Of course, of course! At some point or another, I'd have just decided not to bother that little bitch for one time loop!" As Alex's eyes widened and he clenched his mouth shut, Terumi smiled and said "What, did you SERIOUSLY think I'd have shown her mercy NEXT time loop? And give YOU a chance to save her sorry ass? Hehehe, you were played like a damn FIDDLE, idiot!"

The boy closed his eyes, letting out an annoyed sigh, then raised his hand up to give Terumi the artifact piece.

"You're right. You beat me, I lost. Now I'll give you exactly what you deserve, Terumi."

As Terumi's fingers were less than an inch away from the artifact, his chest was stabbed right through by Ookami. Hakumen was behind him, a knee on the ground as he tried to stand upright.

"Fall into the abyss born from your selfish deceit, Yuuki Terumi."

With those cold words, Hakumen ripped his blade down through Terumi's left hip and then swung back the other way, slicing through the part of the leg below his kneecaps. Terumi at first grumbled "W-What the hell…?!" but then let loose a surprised scream as his legs were severed from his body.

He fell onto his chest, right on top of a pool formed of his own blood. He creaked his head up and clawed at the ground, growling out in a bitter confusion as Hakumen walked past him "What kind of bullshit is this?! You're dead! This little shit stabbed you like shishkabab!"

Terumi's eyes froze on Hakumen's back, where there was no stab wound to speak of. Alex put on a cattish smile and thought back to a few moments ago as he tossed the artifact piece in his hand. The moment he had 'stabbed' Hakumen, he instantly dispelled his sword so it wouldn't go through all the way, then used the wind to whisper into Hakumen's ear _"Hold on, you'll get your chance at Terumi soon enough…"_

In the present, Hakumen turned at his side and pointed his sword at Terumi's head, telling him with a stern voice "It is over, Terumi. Your ambitions have come to an end." Terumi's lips turned into a scowl, he slammed his right fist against the ground, and with a frenzied glare towards Alex he exclaimed "You little shit…! You tricked ME!"

Alex raised his brows and laid his fingertips at his chest, saying in an innocent tone "Little ol' me? Naaah, I'm just some stupid shit, right? It couldn't have possibly been I who outwitted the great and mighty _Terumi_." With a smug smile he tucked his hand into his pocket, but the moment he did so Hakumen was surrounded by a series of golden rings. Once more, it appeared Kokonoe was trying to call him back.

"Grimalkin! You would interfere again?!"

Hakumen was enraged, but Alex faced him and remarked "Hold on, it's probably a good thing she's doing this. After all, you need someone Observing you to maintain your existence." Those words were enough to calm the man down a bit, though first he remarked "It is unnecessary. The nightmares that plagued this world will soon be vanquished for good. I am content with returning to an existence of solitude."

"Don't stop yet Hakumen. There's still a few other evils to vanquish in this world. Terumi's partner Relius, the Phantom, and the Imp-" Alex didn't get the chance to finish before Hakumen was warped away. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and muttered "Darn…Oh well."

He turned towards Terumi and drew his sword in his left hand. The man dug his fingers against the ground and growled "Just how much do you know?! Who ARE you?!" Alex raised his sword up, staring down at him without a hint of care, and muttered in a stoic tone "Goodbye, Terumi." Then he brought his blade down as fast as he could…

" _ **SHINK!"**_

" _W-What…?"_

Alex's body froze as his feet were pushed off the ground, carried by three energy blades that pierced through his chest, waist and right leg. His eyes slowly widened, his skin went pale, and he focused on the blood that splashed out around the blades that impaled him.

His head slowly creaked up towards the edge of the Cauldron, and with a body mangled beyond recognition crawled out Nu. Her chest was still split up down the middle, the organs struggling to stay within. Her hands were bloody and crusted with gravel upon the flesh, and her eye patch had been torn off to reveal a black scorched circle around the eye. With a maddened pant, she weakly spat out "I-I will never….Give up…! R-Ragna…!"

As Alex fell onto his back with a hardened gasp, Nu pulled herself out of the Cauldron and laid flat upon the ground, gasping and wheezing for air as she lifted her head up and crawled along the ground. Her fingers dipped into Terumi's body, but still she moved towards Ragna. Her heart was driven by love, and even this weak her voice burned with passion.

"I-I'm coming R-Ragna…!"

Alex grit his teeth and tried to push himself up. Nu had struck his body in just the right places to make it difficult for him to get up, but his abject disbelief made the process even harder still.

" _I-Impossible…She should be dead, DEAD damn it! The wounds from Ookami…Falling into the Cauldron…How did she-"_

He gasped, digging his left fingers against the ground as the truth came to mind right away.

" _It's that bastard following us around…THEY must've saved Nu from certain death! B-But why…WHY goddamn it?! I earned the artifact piece fair and square! This should be OVER!"_

Distracted by his self-induced fit of rage, Alex was helpless as a black chain with a glowing green edge and a snake headed biter flew across the room and chomped down on the artifact piece, wrenching it from his grasp. The boy swung his right hand up and murmured in sheer frustration "N-No…!" watching as Terumi performed one last act of defiance by flicking the wrist his Nox Nyctores Ouroboros rested on towards Nu, throwing the artifact piece her way.

"Here! Take it Unit 13! Restart this accursed cycle all over again!"

Nu gasped in surprised and then leaned her body up, the artifact piece falling into her chest and connecting perfectly within her rib cage. The black aura erupted around her body as she regained the power the stone carried within, and with a pleased moan she rose to her feet and her body began to stitch itself back together.

"Aaaaah…Oh I MISSED you so much! But not as much as I missed R-A-G-N-A…!" Nu swung her arms out and exclaimed merrily "Now…C'MERE!" She summoned six energy blades and shattered the frozen prison apart, stabbing through Ragna's body in the process. She then dragged him over, holding her arms out in a hug as the man only had a moment to readjust to reality.

"W-What the he- GAAAAAH!" He was stabbed in unison with Nu by a giant steel blade, and the Murakumo embraced him in a hug under his arms.

"Now Ragna…Lets destroy the world all over again, hmmm?" With a serene tone, Nu pulled herself off the ground and dove into the Cauldron, Ragna letting out a defiant, pointless roar of "SHIIIIIIIIIIITTT!"

The two made their plunge, and Alex slammed his fist against the ground while his heart beat started to slow. The rage building within accelerated the loss of blood, and his eyelids began to seal shut. His hearing weakened, but not before Terumi taunted him one last time.

"EHEEHEHE! You thought you were hot shit, didn't you?! You just wanted to have your cake and eat it too, but instead you're stuck biting down a big ol' piece of humble pie! Got any shit to say now?! Or is your mouth too thick with your own blood?! Hehehehehe….HAHAHAHAH!"

Alex swung his right hand up, and with one last act of defiance he growled out "Go…tch…to hell…TERUMI!" and used the rest of his energy to strike Teurmi with a blast of wind. The man was flung off into the Cauldron as the building trembled. He descended into the Cauldron cackling like a madman, and Alex plopped his hand onto the ground and started to feel his life slipping.

Everything had happened so fast, it was unbelievable to behold. Victory had been earned, yet taken in an instant. The boy hadn't made a single mistake. He was only screwed by someone he knew little about, who was so vindictive in their agenda against him that they would deny him this hard-fought victory.

The motives of this enigmatic being did not matter at this point. Now the cycle would repeat again, but with the way things were ending it only meant that Shina was in great danger of being targeted by Terumi next time. Her life, her sanity…The safety of both rested on Alex's shoulders, but he had NO idea how he'd even find her next time.

" _God…damn it…"_

As the roar of the Black Beast's revival echoed through the chambers, Alex closed his eyes and felt his life slip away to nothingness…

 _Next Time: The Weight of Death_


	25. Chapter 25

Right upon awakening in a new time loop, Shina didn't hesitate to get on her feet and go straight to Kagutsuchi. She would be true to her vow to herself and head right on up to the Kagutsuchi HQ to wait for Alex to show up so they could come up with a plan to take care of Nu. Landing in Orient Town, she broke into a sprint past the many people, apologizing to everyone left frazzled by her presence, and wouldn't stop until she was at the very top of this grand city.

Well, that's what she wanted to do, but for all that enthusiasm she was still confined by her mortal limits, which included her lung capacity. So she had to break pretty often, meaning it took her an hour or so to make it to the top. By the time she was there, her shirt was drenched in a sweat made cold from the high elevation, and she cuddled her arms against her chest and shivered while climbing up the last staircase.

"Brrrrr…!" Her lips vibrated together enough to tickle the skin, making her quiver just a little bit. She made it to the top and perked her head to look at the door. It was sealed shut, meaning no one had made it here yet. Not Noel, not Ragna, and especially not Alex.

"Heh, well, 'tis to be expected…" She remarked in a peppy, fanciful tone before pulling her arms away and turning around. Overlooking the grand city, she reflected upon her time spent there until now. This loop, the likes of Litchi, Bang, Tao and Carl would have to deal with their affairs on their own, and though her heart felt heavy about not being able to help them directly she knew now that this decision was for the best.

"Stay safe everyone. Alex and I'll have this time loop hullabaloo solved soon enough!" She said with a hand laid atop the center of her chest, feeling the weight of this world added upon her shoulders. But the memories of her family, the happiness she wanted to protect more than anything else, helped her carry that weight to the point that it felt lighter than her own body.

Closing her eyes and letting out a quiet, solemn hum, she then walked towards the top of the staircase's stone railing and leaned her back against it. Tucking her hands into her pockets and wiggling her kicked up right foot in small circles, she looked towards the sunny sky and commented "Nothin' I can do but wait. Hope you make it here soon Alex…"

Time seemed to pass at a brisk pace, as before Shina knew it the sun was already descending past the top of the building, meaning that a couple hours had passed. Puckering her lower lip upward and giving it a smack, she glanced to the left and found no trace of Alex.

"Wonder what's takin' him so long? I don't want to move but if he's run into trouble…" She bounced her rear against the rugged stone to push herself upright, feeling a little stiff in the legs and shoulders from how long she'd been standing around. As she took another glance down the stairs, a slow panting sound could be heard coming closer, and there was something familiar in how cutesy it sounded.

"Huh? Is that?" Shina fluttered her eyelashes and looked down to see Noel Vermillion running up the staircase. With her heart hardening like solid concrete, Shina glanced at her feet and with a somewhat disheartened sigh murmured "Guess I can't avoid them all…"

Noel stopped a few steps from the top, raising her little head and keeping her mouth agape as she let out a timid, puzzled "H…huh?" Shina pulled a hand from her pockets and waved it beside her head with a smile, declaring out with a old western dialect "Howdy stranger! What brings you around these parts?"

"Who are…you?" Noel paused in the middle of her question, as though for a moment struck with familiarity. She lowered her head until the chin nuzzled the collar of her coat, and with a flustered blush she could be heard murmuring "I don't know this person…do I?"

Noel closed her eyes and gave a timid moan. Before the girl could piece anything concrete together, Shina pretended to look shocked and laid a hand on the side of her face, gasping out "Oh, I recognize those clothes! You must be the NOL personnel I was told to liaison with! Noel Vermillion, right?"

The girl stopped thinking and perked her head up, remarking in a surprised tone "You're from this branch?" Shina nodded her head, and Noel continued with her right brow raised "I didn't hear anything about a second liaison in my report…"

" _So she's already met with Terumi. Good thing he's not around this time…"_

Shina breathed a light sigh and then explained to Noel "Sorry, I was assigned to this job in secret. Me and my uhhhh partner! Yeah, my partner! We were to meet up with you and help with finding Major Jin Kisaragi, but my friend's gotten a leeeeettle lost." She creaked out a grin while pinching her thumb and pointer before her chin.

Noel looked up and shook her head, but judging from the way her eyes squinted she couldn't shake off the feeling that something was familiar. Even so, she began climbing the rest of the stairs while telling Shina "F-Forgive me for being pushy, but I can't wait. Major Kisaragi could be inside and-"

Guided by the memories of what happened from her last encounter with this timid lass, Shina grabbed Noel's right wrist from between the folds of her coat and declared "No!" Noel spun and squealed, finding her eyes looking straight at Shina's frozen, freaked out gaze. Shina squeezed her eyes shut and with a tense scowl turned her head aside.

" _Wait! Stop Shina…You're letting your emotions get the better of you. But…"_ Watching Noel get torn in half and later crushed to a fleshy paste was just too hard to forget.

"P-Please…why are you acting like this…? I-It hurts…"

Noel winced and turned her head left and right, trying to pry herself free from Shina's tight grip. Shina looked down and noticed what she was doing, then loosened up enough to see that her grip has left a red imprint on Noel's skin. Staring at that mark for a moment, Shina closed her eyes and apologized "I-I'm sorry…"

Putting the hand up to scratch the side of her face, Shina said "I've just…seen a friend die before because they weren't careful enough." Noel paused in the middle of rubbing her wrist and looked her in the eye, giving her a quiet, empathetic reply "I'm sorry to hear that…B-But I'll be ok. I've been trained for this sort of thing."

Shina looked at Noel, seeing just a hint of confidence in those eyes of hers. It wasn't much, but it was a reminder to Shina that Noel wasn't so weak that she couldn't fend for herself. Even so, she had to request of the Lieutenant "Alright, but let me go first to investigate. If the coast is clear I'll call for you, ok?"

Noel gave a short, trusting nod and said "O-Ok…And if your friend shows up, I'll tell them you went in." Shina smiled and gave a thumbs-up in turn.

"Thank you. Now, if you excuse me!" Returning to a peppy demeanor knowing Noel would stand back safe and sound, Shina turned upon the door and walked up to it. As she went to lay a hand on the door, she remembered the Ars Magus trap on it. However, she didn't retract in time and pressed the door forward, surprised to find it creaking open a moment later.

" _E-Eh?"_ As the door opened enough for her to be able to slip in, she drew her rapier and snuck inside. Glancing around, she tip-toed towards the foyer while thinking it odd the trap didn't activate.

" _Does that mean someone's gotten here before us? Oh wait, yeah, Jin…"_

Once at the foyer she looked around for any signs of the Major, whispering while keeping her rapier close to the chest "It'd probably be a good idea to knock him out so he's not in the way." A chill hit her spine and then fell upon the back of her arms and legs. With a sharp turn around Shina pointed her rapier at an icy fog building up in the distance.

"Jin Kisaragi! I know you're in there!" She remarked upon seeing a familiar shadow amongst the fog. The man in question walked out at a sluggish pace, like a glacier advancing atop the ocean's surface. As his visage became clear, he looked different from the last time Shina had seen him. He had gained that strange violet aura and red eyes common of those that mysterious being possessed with their power, but not just that his overall demeanor was serious and downright unnerving to behold.

He looked a lot like a robot accomplishing a given task, and not a single emotion crossed his face as he held Yukianesa before his face and drew it out. Ice spread along the walls and ceiling around him, creeping and crackling with every atom of moisture that froze over. Shina started seeing her own breath, and it was thicker than the frost clouding up off the ice Jin produced. As the Major wrenched his sword free from it's sheath, he pointed it downward and without hesitation declared one thing.

"Freeze all who stand in my path…YUKIANESA!" Then he stabbed the ground, and Shina reeled back with a surprised gasp.

 **Chapter 25: Desperation**

When the time loop started over again for Alex, he didn't waste even a second. He got to Kagutsuchi and started running wherever his feet could take him. His heart was racing, his mind unable to think of anything else but Shina's own safety. Without any regard for conspicuousness, he yelled her name as loud as he could.

"SHINA! SHIIIINAAA!"

He got no responses save for the bewilderment of the people around him, which he ignored every time and ran straight for the next open area to yell at. He panted with a wild fervor, using his powers to draw in enough air for him to not succumb to exhaustion.

" _I have to find her! I can't let Terumi be the first to reach her!"_

His pupils were shrunken, his face paler than the whites of his eyes, and all the blood in his body flowed to his legs to keep them running. Even though Kagutsuchi was huge, he would cover it a dozen times over if that's what it took to find her. All the while, he couldn't escape the image of Terumi's maniacal cackling echoing in his mind.

"SHIIIIIIIIINAAAAAAA!"

And a dozen times did Alex run through Kagutsuchi. His legs were stiffer than stiff, his lungs were so worn down they were like deflated balloons, and the bottoms of his feet were torn open and bleeding. Through this pain, the boy was hesitant to drag himself to the top of Kagutsuchi, the last place he deigned to look.

Laying a hand on the side of his forehead, he could feel the veins between his skin and skull throbbing like a jackhammer. His teeth were deep-rooted into a scowl as he passed the wall at the top of the stairs and looked to the right to see Kagutsuchi HQ.

" _This is the only place I haven't checked…It HAS to be where Shina's at. I just have to hope it's by her own volition and not because of Terumi…"_

Clenching his hands into fists he charged for the last staircase standing between him and the HQ. Along the way, who else would he bump shoulders with but Ragna the Bloodedge, who growled and right away grabbed Alex by his left shoulder to jerk him back.

"Hey asshole, where do you think you're going?!" Ragna would regret choosing now to be his foul-mouthed self, as when Alex spun around he gave the man his most furious, impatient glare, his eyes looking as hollow as a horror film phantom.

"I don't have time for this shit so I'd suggest you let go. **NOW.** " Alex spoke in a deep, rapid voice, and for a moment Ragna's grip loosened as his arms could be seen trembling. Alex then continued up, with Ragna grumbling "Wait a second…I swear I've seen that kid somewhere before."

At the top of the stairs, Alex saw the door was shut and growled. He swung his right fist up, with Ragna catching up with him a moment later and commenting while sagging his brows to show he cared little "Hey kid, you're not going to get in-" The boy set his fist on fire and punched the door so hard it was blown down, giving the Grim Reaper a complete 180 on his opinion.

"What the actual HELL?!" He stared straight ahead with eyes blank as newly made paper, but that expression turned to a teeth biting grimace as him and Alex were assailed by a frosted gale. Alex widened his eyes and stared into a frosty wasteland, as everything he had seen inside before was buried in a thick layer of ice. It was as though he had swung open the doors of the world's largest freezer.

" _If Shina's here, then that must mean she's fighting or fought Jin!"_ The echoes of a gun chamber unloading confirmed to him the latter, and Alex's brows rose while his nostrils flared open from a heavy breath he took in. Then without a second more of waiting, he charged into the building with Ragna close behind.

"Hold on! I have some questions for-" His advance was slowed by him slipping on the ice and falling on his back.

Making his way to the foyer, Alex heard the gunfire stop as a shrill scream came forth, and that itself was soon drowned by unhinged laughter and a vicious remark.

"You've gotten in my way for the last time, TRASH!"

That voice could not be mistaken as anyone but Jin's, and from how high-pitched it was the scream could only belong to Noel. Shina's presence in this scuffle was undetermined, save for the worrisome fact that Alex could not sense her power. The spread of ice even extended to the giant holy statue in the very center of the building, and possibly down to the Cauldron as well.

" _Jin can't do this. Not on this level anyways…"_

Alex's suspicion of foul-play in this scenario would prove well and true, as the moment he was able to examine the entire foyer he found Jin standing in the center of the room with the strange aura and hellish red eyes he'd become far too accustomed to seeing. Yukianesa was pointed downward at Noel, who had fallen to her knees and succumbed to the effects of the frost. Her skin was losing color, the ice was creeping up her bare legs, and even with fingers spread to help in embracing herself for warmth Bolverk refused to leave the grip of her palms.

"M-Major…Please…S-S-S-Stop this!" She begged, but her pleas fell on the deafest of ears. Jin's mouth swung agape and his expression oozed with delight and madness as he proclaimed "Is this the best you can do, scum?!"

Noel was frightened, and she clutched her arms as tight as she could while her body curled itself up. Alex swung his head around the room, gritting his teeth while projecting a steady warmth around himself.

" _Don't have time for this! Where are you Shina?!"_

As he tried to find her, Ragna ran at his side and his glare went straight towards Jin. His cheeks crinkled into a scowl, and the primordial nature of his own humanity came forth in how savage he declared his brother's name.

"JIIIN!"

When he heard his name called with such vicious vitriol, Jin stopped what he was doing and swerved his body around one slow step at a time. Each time his foot set down on the ice, the atmosphere got a degree colder. He looked as his brother with arms held out, Yukianesa suspended down from his grip, and a sheer, fascinated look in his eye.

"Brother?! Is that you brother?! Oh how long I've waited to see you again!"

Ragna swung out his sword before his waist and grumbled under a scowl "Bastard, what the hell have you done?!" Jin smiled and giggled as hard as he could, declaring to him with a scathing glee "That look….that rage…I've missed it SO much. Hehehe, I'm so GLAD you came at just the right time, brooooother!"

Jin swung his body in a single, jerking motion and pointed Yukianesa back at Noel's neck, declaring with all his might "Now you can watch me kill that stupid bitch Saya!" He swung his sword up and prepared to bring it down, Noel clenching her eyes shut and screaming at the top of her lungs "STOOOOOOOOOOP!"

Metal rang out as Ragna got between Jin and Noel, locking blades with his brother and forcing him back, exclaiming in a sheer rage "Are you out of your goddamn mind Jin?!"

Jin smiled, ecstatic at the sparks flying both figurative and literal between the two of them, and he exclaimed with unhinged glee "You're the one palling around with a destroyer of worlds! But wait! That's just the type of person you are nowadays, aren't you brother?!"

"RRRRRGGGHHH!" Ragna swung his sword out and blew Jin back, exclaiming with all his vitriol "Jin, you have no goddamn idea how long I've waited to kick your ass!"

Jin swung his arms out and burst into laughter, telling Ragna as bluntly as he physically could "The feeling is so mutual, BROOOOTHER! But I can't even decide how I'm going to kill you! Will I slice you up into pieces like that piece of trash you're defending?!"

With how much Jin was getting in the way of his search, Alex was about to draw his sword to help Ragna take him down when the Major said "Or perhaps I'll freeze your entire body over…Like that other blonde wench who dared to stand in my way!"

Alex's body stiffened in a hunch, and his hand stayed clenched on open air instead of the handle of his blade. He looked at Jin, muttering his words verbatim with a foreboding tone "Blonde…wench…?"

Frozen in that pose, the boy's eyes started to gaze towards the right, and a sight once obscured by a thick mist started to reveal itself. Time stopped with a thick, thumping heartbeat against Alex's chest. His eyes widened and he could acknowledge nothing else but what was in front of him. Sounds went mute, he couldn't feel anything on his skin, and he wasn't able to tell that his feet were moving on their own. To him, it was as though what he saw drew him in like a magnet. A cruel, unbelievable magnet.

"S-Shina…?"

He dropped to his knees and his arms limped to his thighs, swinging back and forth like bloody pendulums. He let out many short gasps, his eyes fixated on a series of frozen chunks, each one containing the dismantled remains of Shina's body. Her body had been preserved in an offensive stance, as part of her rapier looked to be in mid-thrust. What stuck in Alex's mind more was her face. She was shocked, perhaps a bit frightened, but she couldn't possibly have imagined that this would be her fate.

Alex's eyes trembled and his body started to fall forward. He held his hands against the front of his face and hid his tears and moans of frustration. His brain throbbed, pained by the cacophony of emotions whirling within.

" _E-Even though you were suffering, you still kept trying to come here to fight Nu, didn't you? Y-You've stayed strong through all this, a-and yet this is how the world repays you…? W-Why…?! What the HELL did you do to deserve this kind of fate?!"_

" **Hehehe…You know EXACTLY why this is happening."**

A voice rung out in Alex's mind. It sounded like him, but it was not him. That was something he refused to acknowledge.

" _Get…OUT!"_

" **It's because you've been too…** _ **soft**_ **. None of this would have ever happened if you had just-"**

" _Shut…UP!"_

"… **If you had just acknowledged what you really are. Hehehehe, I KNOW the vow you made all those years ago. Because WE made that same vow. To never be treated like a fool, to never be TRAMPLED below someone's FEET like a piece of DIRT, to make anyone who stood in our way PAY with their BLOOD!"**

"… _I-I deny your very EXISTENCE! Now GET OUT!"_

" **You'll never be rid of me. For we. Are.** _ **ONE**_ **. And 'til death do us part, as the saying goes…"**

"… _I may never be rid of you, but I'll NEVER let you control me."_

" **Oh tsk tsk now…Why WOULD I do that? YOU are the one who is angry, right? Rage, fear, sadness…It forms your very BEING. Alex Whiter would only be a HUSK were it not for them…"**

"… _And YOU would not exist either!"_

" **Heheheh…And now why would you ever wish for THAT…When I am offering you a suggestion?"**

"… _."_

" **You KNOW why that aura is on that pitiful HUMAN. You KNOW why THEY chose to kill her. It's to get to you…THEY want YOU to suuuuffer. And they'll use any means necessary in order to do so."**

"…"

" **Your little sideshow attempt at adhering to your humanity will get you nowhere anymore! If only you were more RUTHLESS, more POWERFUL…! Then what you want could be yours,** _ **and you'd never have to be alone again**_ **…"**

" _Never…alone…again…"_

" **Heeeeh. So…why don't you drop this little façade and embrace our little symbiosis, my little passive persona, and teach that enigmatic FOOL a lesson about crossing OUR path."**

"… _."_

" **Before the curtain closes on yet another act, make it clear to the puppeteer that this is OUR show! Hold nothing back, little Whiter…Throw everything you have at their pathetic little doll.** _ **Make them**_ _ **ALL**_ _ **pay with their blood…"**_

Alex began to pull his hands away from his face. There were no traces of tears once a fire began to build around his body. His heart, once thumping, began to race, and now his irises had turned a dark shade of red. He felt light-headed as his face stiffened into a subdued expression of rage and he began to pull his body off the ground. He gave one glance at Shina's shattered body, then as he turned his head to face Jin he let forth a few short body-shaped pulses of energy that were in tune with his heartbeats.

Ragna and Jin's clash stopped in an instant, and the two parted ways with differing reactions to what they just felt. Ragna hunched over, his body sweating all over, while Jin just looked towards Alex and swung his arms out to declare "The destroyer has been awakened! Hahahaha! Now…I CAN KILL YOU TOO!"

Alex stood sideways at first, tilting his head back to glare at Jin with one eye. The boy didn't blink, and his pupils didn't move even a millimeter out of focus as step by step he turned to fully face Jin. The heat around his body turned the ice to mist in a second, none of it touching Shina's broken self.

There was no scowl, no gritted teeth. His lips were a simple line from one cheek to the other. The other features of his face were no different, staying simplistic even as his eyes projected a rage hotter than the fire around his body. The pulses of energy quickened while the heat rose around his body like an updraft, making his hair and shirt wave around.

He disappeared, not even kicking up a gale, and reappeared right above Jin with his right fist alright thrust down. Jin jumped ten feet back with an eager grin as Alex smashed the ground, at first imprinting a hollow hole into the ice before a wave of heat spread out and melted all ice to a fine steam within a twenty foot radius. This freed Noel, but sent her flying back along with Ragna.

The loose parts of Jin's uniform flapped beside his body as he landed, and with a guttural chuckle the left side of his lips cracked up with a grin as he pulled Yukianesa from it's sheath and pushed the steam away with a cold gale. Alex landed on the ground with legs spread and head hung so far over that his back was hunched like a hump. He laid a hand across the front of his face and could be heard making deep breaths as energy kept pulsing out of his body. His back heaved with every breath and he gripped his fingers around his face, parting just a couple of them so he could glare at Jin.

"Drop the act…YOU MONSTER!"

"Act, what act?! The only one putting on an act is you, destroyer!" Jin said while shaking his head hard back and forth. Alex's eye flared wide, the iris consuming the white within whole.

"Don't screw with me! I KNOW you're controlling Jin! How dare…HOW DARE YOU KILL SHINA!"

"Heheheh…! Why should I care about the name of some stupid wench?! She got exactly what she deserved for enabling you, DESTROYER!"

With words like that it became less likely that Jin was in the middle of being controlled by the mysterious being. There would be no reason to hide their presence now. Such a realization didn't make Alex's emotions lessen, in fact the rage boiled even more within. It started to sound like Jin had done this of his own volition, more than likely making the conscious decision to listen to the "Power of Order" that rested inside of him.

Alex knew the Power of Order as a force that recognizes threats to the world, and gives a chosen few the strength to combat these threats. If these suspicions were true, then Jin was not only perceiving Alex as a threat, but had seen Shina as one as well. The being just gave Jin the aura to help his crusade along.

" _Why?! What did she EVER do to deserve such treatment?!"_

Memories of Shina's kindness and smiles scratched at the front of his mind, trying to break through the rage that clouded his thoughts. Instead those memories burned, serving only to fuel the flames of hatred. The heat surrounding Alex's body burst into flames that rose up and melted all the ice across the building, heated droplets pattering down onto Jin's skin if they didn't already turn to steam.

" _All she wants is to save her people. Even through every bump in the road…She's found the strength to keep going! And yet this world…_ _ **THIS WORLD**_ _…!"_

Alex pulled his hand away from his face and limped both his arms towards the ground. With a couple dry, crazed laughs, he swung his upper body back and flung his arms out, letting out a pained scream as the entire building began to quake. The flames grew thicker and broke through the ceiling, which was already weak from Yukianesa's ice, and started to crack it apart.

Jin held his ground and let the power wash over him, giggling all the while. Ragna tried to hold his ground and draw his sword to join the fight, but upon seeing Noel struggling to take all this in an instinct kicked in and with teeth grit he sprinted over and put himself in between her and Alex.

As the boy finished screaming, he hung forward with a ring under his eyes. He swung his right arm back, gritting his teeth and leaping straight at Jin. The man swung Yukianesa at the ground and sent a wave of ice at Alex. It melted apart but dispersed some of the flames, so he lashed it at the ground again and dispelled more of them, then sent out one more to cover his body in a creeping frost that slowed his movements just enough for Jin to spin around and stab Yukianesa into the ground.

"Leave this world forever, NIGHTMARE!"

The moment Yukianesa made contact, the precipitation was flash frozen around Alex, trapping him in a massive wall of ice. Jin sheathed his blade and swung his arms out, giggling in glee.

"Hahaha! HEHEHEHE!"

The ice started cracking from the center of Alex's fist, spreading out across the entire thing in a second and shattering it apart, with Alex continuing his lunge until his fist was dug into Jin's chest and his left foot smashed the ground apart. He twisted his knuckles and ripped through the man's shirt, and with how tight he got in he managed to strain the skin enough to draw blood.

"Ghhh, h-how?! Yukianesa's power is suppo-" The back of Jin's head was grabbed onto by Alex's other hand, and the boy turned to the side to slam his face into the broken ground a second later. Then he stamped down on Jin's right hand, crushing the bones with a resounding crack. The boy flared his brows up and then kicked Jin in the hip, shifting his body so hard that his right shoulder snapped in two.

"AAAAAAAAAAAUGHHH!" Jin let out a blood curling scream that left even Ragna with fear in his heart. Alex then plucked Jin by the back and flicked him into an upright pose, snapping his hand out to grab him by the neck. The boy tilted his head to glance at the man's limping arm.

"Hmph, your arm's broken. But what's an arm compared to an entire body, right?" Alex looked Jin straight in the eyes, which were rolling back as he was hacking with blood that was flowing into his esophagus.

"F-Freeze…Y-Yukiane-" He grabbed the blade free from it's sheath and swung it at Alex, but without averting his gaze he raised his right hand and pulled the sword free from the man's grasp. He went straight for the handle, and shattered it like a glass cup. From afar, Ragna's eyes went wide and his face was pale.

"You have to be kidding me…He DESTROYED a Nox Nyctores?!"

Alex raised his brows and puckered his lips a bit, giving a curt shrug as he appeared to be pondering the situation.

"Oh, it seems you've lost your weapon now too…Or, is it more apt to call it your murder tool?!"

Alex dug his fingers into Jin's neck, piercing the skin.

"See, I bet you thought you were being a hero, but you're not. Anyone who would listen to a voice in their head that told them to kill a PERFECTLY INNOCENT GIRL…!" Alex gripped tighter as his face became wrinkled with rage, only to pull himself back a little with a cough before continuing "Well…They aren't a hero. They're a murderer, no two ways about it."

Jin's face was red, as the blood rushing to the wounds in his neck had nowhere to go but there. He gagged and water was forced from his tear ducts, but Alex continued to lecture him "To think that you, YOU! …Would ever become Hakumen. But, that's fine."

He held his right hand out and set it on fire, giving Jin a chance to see it as a reflection off his eyes before the boy raised it beside his head and pointed a finger at the Major's forehead.

"This version of you's never going to get a chance TO become him!" Before the fire was shot, a fragrant whirlwind filled with rose petals surrounded the boy and whisked him away, with Jin being dropped to the ground hacking and panting for air a moment after. Ragna's the only one able to acknowledge what had just happened by whispering "Huh? Wait, that looked like Rachel's magic…"

 _Next Time: The Monster Within_


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26: Burning Requiem**

Alex had been transported away in a split second, so he hadn't the time to stop what was meant to be the killing blow on Jin. A condensed beam of fire as large as his pointer finger thus shot forward and melted through the front of an iron gate, exploding upon making contact with the stone stairs beyond it. The boy paused for a moment, staring at the smoldering crater his attack made before realizing he was no longer in Kagutsuchi HQ.

He made a hard glance left then a hard glance right, recognizing that he was back in Rachel's domain. But now the roses below his feet were an ashen white, and most of the color had been flushed from the props beyond the fence. Alex opened his mouth, about to let loose a bitter whisper when the castle's owner decided to speak first.

"It is quite despondent how much you've managed to sully my already low expectations of you, Mr. Whiter."

Her voice carried her usual dry wit with a regal grace, but in the mind of Alex her cutthroat remarks only served to further his agitation. He made a sharp turn to the left and looked up, finding Rachel sitting atop a crooked tower with her legs crossed and both hands holding her parasol over her left shoulder.

Biting his teeth into his scowl with his irises as red as the roses once were, Alex cast a light aura of fire around his body and scrunched down, coiling his hands into fists as he growled out to the vampire "I don't have TIME for this, Rachel!"

Rachel tilted her head, her expression as relaxed as always even as her eyes beamed down a scathing glare towards the boy. Parting her legs from one another, she twirled her parasol around as her irises began to glow, giving the boy a stern lecture "And I no longer have the time to spare even an iota of patience towards your unsightly behavior."

"Does it LOOK like I care what you think?!" Alex swung his right arm out and then proceeded to lambaste HER with a crinkled look of rage on his face "You know EXACTLY what's going on here as an Observer. So why don't you keep sitting on your prissy little ass doing nothing while **I** handle my own affairs!"

He then began to reach for the Gaia Temporis, only for his right hand to be wrenched back to the point of having the elbow bone snap. He grit his teeth and fought through the pain to take a few quick steps in order to spin around and throw his right fist towards his assailant, Valkenhayn's, head.

Valkenhayn leaped back and let go, but not without digging his feral claws into Alex's arm to draw blood. The butler, standing tall and proud away from the boy, morphed his furry, lupine claw back into his more dignified white glove and tugged at the bottom of it. He bore his fangs and spoke in a gravely, furious tone "You will stay right where you are, you disobedient whelp!"

Pain shooting up through his right arm from the wounds until it struck the pinched nerves in his elbow like a typhoon of agony, Alex gripped the scars tight in his left hand and cauterized them in a second. Limping forward and letting out a couple uneven, hefty pants, he glanced at Valkenhayn then back at Rachel atop the tower. The vampire departed from her lofty perch and descended to the ground like a leaf drifting from it's branch.

As she made a soft landing upon a pillow of wind, the rose petals at her feet were pushed around the lip of her dress, and she adjusted her body into an upright posture a couple seconds later. Even as Alex glared at her with the intensity of a thousand suns, Rachel didn't look the least bit threatened and remarked "My duties do indeed prevent me from interfering in the affairs of this world. But lest you forget, little pup…"

Rachel swung her right hand out and a violet lightning bolt struck down at Alex, making him leap aside to dodge it. The vampire raised her head back, her eyes made brighter when cast under the shade of her parasol. Then, she reminded the boy with a firm dictum "You are NOT from our world."

Alex landed with his knees bent and hands towards the ground. He glared up at Rachel, seeing her mesmerizing vampiric nature in full display. Yet that she would now display that power against HIM of all people made the boy punch the ground and a second later scramble to his feet to exclaim "You know what? Bite me, Rachel! I'm not going to sit here and let you belittle me again!"

"Oh? And for what reason should I deign to do otherwise? Am I to say that I am proud of your attempt to ruthlessly murder our icy hearted Mr. Hero? Or should I be congratulating your repeated failures against the dreaming doll? Any praise you expect me to yield in your favor is but a foolish wish made by an even more fool hearted boy."

Alex clenched his fists, digging his fingers into the top of his palms as he growled out to her "You know DAMN WELL neither of those things would've happened were it not for that bastard doing everything they can to screw us over!"

"An argument could be made in your favor for the latter…" Rachel said, closing her eyes and basking in a twilit wind before she continued "And yet, regardless of their interference in the former, it was by your hand, by your own state of mind, that you weighed your options and chose the path of brutality."

"HE KILLED SHINA!" Alex lashed out, his saliva struck as strands between his teeth as his roar shook the castle grounds.

Rachel did not move an inch, her ensuing tone as cold as her pale skin "Why concern yourself with the nature of death when your tampering has rendered it's very meaning inconsequential."

Alex bent down a little to the left and curled his fists closer to his face, gritting his teeth into a scowl and mumbling "You heartless bitch…! Death has no consequence?! What would **YOU** know?! All this time sitting on your perch far above, watching this world time after time again and judging us all…You've never ever FELT what it's like to die!"

"How DARE you-" Valkenhayn's rage was halted by Rachel raising a hand, a notion that went unnoticed as Alex had closed his eyes and grit his teeth even harder.

"Your body grows weak and cold until you can't even feel your own thoughts…You lose sight of the world and are drowned in an inescapable darkness…And when all's said and done all you have to accompany you into the sea of nothingness that is the afterlife is either a damning happiness or the strain of eternal regrets…"

Alex's body quivered and his arms limped at his hips. He hung his head for a moment, then swung it back up with angered tears flying off the sides of his face as he exclaimed to Rachel "I've known what that feeling is like before I ever came to this world! I don't even WANT to think about how much pain and misery Shina's experienced dying time and time again!"

"I just…I just want this whole mess to be done with as much as you do Rachel! But if it's not that mysterious bastard, then it's Terumi, or Kokonoe, and now YOU?! A-A-All of you keep getting in MY way and I'm SICK OF IT!" Alex gripped his hands around the sides of his head and his voice got more unhinged as he got further along.

"I-I won't let you take this away from me! I-I can't screw this up! I WON'T screw this up!"

"Your destructive course of action is what leads you further and further from what you desire, Mr. Whiter. You cannot shift blame towards others when you are the one in control of your life."

Alex swung his head up with a steaming flare of his nostrils, focusing his glare on Rachel with an emotion beyond rage, pure aggression. Behind him, Valkenhayn's eyes widened and he exclaimed in an urgent haste "Madame Rachel, watch out!"

He lunged forward with arms stretched out, preparing to restrain the boy with all his might. But he would be the one restrained, as Alex uprooted the roots of dozens of roses and bound them around Valkenhayn's legs as tight as they could be. The butler was pulled to the ground in a rather undignified manner and dragged away from the boy's feet, even as he summoned his sharp wolf claws to swing at Alex's legs in a vicious, desperate form.

Alex, during this period, pulled his right hand back and charge it with fire, exclaiming to Rachel with his face no longer resembling a normal human's with how unhinged it had become "SHUT…UP!" He thrust his hand out and shot forth a raging inferno that could easily consume Rachel whole, but the vampire brushed her left hand aside and with a snap of her fingers Nago's eyes popped into view atop her parasol and the familiar spread himself thick before her body as a wall of protection.

"HOT HOT HOT!" Nago was sweating and in tears before the fire even made contact with him, but in her own off-handed way Rachel had faith in his capabilities "Nago, you will not be receiving your dinner if you fail."

"Y-Yes…M-Mistress…" Nago whimpered as he held on for dear life, the sweltering flames lashing out against his body as Rachel turned her back to them and kept her cool as best she could "This is not a fight you want, Mr. Whiter. I would suggest calming down before you do something you regret."

Alex stood at the crest of his inferno with hand extended, lunging it forward to increase it's intensity while exclaiming "You know NOTHING about me!" Nago's body turned a blistering red from the tail to the back of what could be considered his neck. His tongue shot out and steam ripped forth from his ears as he yelled out "AAAAAUGH, I'M TOO PRETTY TO DIE! MISTRESS, HELP!"

"Hmph, if only to deafen your boorish cries, Nago." Rachel glanced over her shoulder and past the side of Nago's girth. She brushed a hand out from the edge of her sleeve and called forth a blusterous gale from nowhere. Carrying the force of a hurricane behind itself, the wind managed to counterattack the flames and send them flying right back into Alex's face.

The boy crossed his arms to block the fire as it lashed around his body and burnt a pair of thin slants across the roses behind him. He swung his arms out and growled like a hungered beast, then leapt into the air with both fists drawn behind his head. He slammed them down against Nago's back and sent a ripple through his skin, which made his body wobbly like gelatin.

"Ooooh…this isn't good…" The familiar, in his weakness, slunk back into his parasol shape nice and slow. Rachel's eyelids opened just a bit and she drew her hand forth with a little more haste. With her feet hopped an inch off the ground, she was able to kick up a gale to send skyward before Alex could kick her in the shoulder.

Hovering high up with the help of her dress, Rachel made a swipe at the air beside her face and attempted to advise the belligerent boy "And what will you gain from killing me? I can assure you, it will not be the peace of mind your heart utmost desires."

A lightning bolt struck down before Rachel in an instant, and Alex leapt back before he it could make contact with him. He then leaned back upon landing and rolled across the roses to evade a few more lightning bolts. When he got onto his knees he dropped his hands down in a strong, single sweep and pounded Rachel's body with a downward draft powerful enough to ground her in a second. The depth of her heels protected her legs from cracking, and though she flinched upon landing she was able to continue projecting her elegance without difficulty.

Alex gripped his fists near his knees so tightly the veins popped forth, and his heart thumped against his chest so fast no single person could ever count the beats. He pushed himself upright, stopping partway only as he sensed Valkenhayn darting at him from behind. The butler had turned his head into that of a wolf's and had his fangs snarled out to chomp down on the boy's neck.

But with just a slight push forward, Alex evaded the lethal snapping down of his teeth with only the minor loss of part of his shirt. Then in a second he turned right around and clocked Valkenhayn in the forehead with all he had, the collision making a plume of rose petals erupt into the sky. Yet Valkenhayn, with heavy grunts and just a little blood trickling from his forehead, held his ground with the help of his long, muscular lupine legs.

"While I draw breath, you shall not lay your filthy, ungrateful hands upon Madame Rachel!" Valkenhayn declared with all his vigor, to which Alex responded by flaring his eyes as wide as he could and exclaiming "GET OUT OF MY WAY, YOU MUTT!"

Alex pulled his fist back and swung his right knee up into butler's jaw with all he had, dislodging his feet from the ground. He then dropped back down and with electricity coursing through his right leg he shot it out with the force of a shotgun into Valkenhayn's waist. His body turned back to normal and he spat out saliva atop Alex's leg before being blown back into the right tower.

The boy swung his right hand up and was prepared to send a fist of flame at the butler when he could feel sparks in the air surrounding him. He hopped back and evaded another lightning bolt from Rachel's, and he spread his right leg upon landing so he could easily turn around to face her. The vampire yet again tried to heed to the boy's humanity "You told me once that you do not wish for your efforts to be in vain, yet what you are doing now is a very contradiction of those words. Fighting this pointless battle brings you no closer to the artifact piece nor does it help you stop that tyrant."

"It's not pointless to me!" Alex leaned his head forward and gripped his fists together, the castle grounds shaking as power gathered into his very being. He then roared and lunged his open palms up, firing an overwhelming cone of flames right at Rachel.

She felt the heat from the winds washing over her, their intensity as great as the light of the sun. Yet against that which resembles her kind's mortal foe she merely brushed a hand forward and called forth a wind of equal strength to her aid, and with it held the flames at bay while the pressure from them could only break through to ruffle her pigtails.

"Then, dare I ask, what is the point? For all I see before me is a wandering pup who whimpers and whines, knowing not the reason as to what ails him. Is he hungry? Is he tired? Or perhaps what he wants is something that all species lust for deep down…Perhaps all this meager beast truly wants is to experience the tender mercy of love's warm embrace. If so, maybe then he'd truly feel alive…"

Alex's heart pounded with a sudden beat and he lowered his head, biting his lower lip as he was stung with a resounding truth. He swung his head up and tears flew forth from his burning eyes as he pulled back and jerked his palms against the tip of the flaming cone, attacking Rachel's gale with forceful, short bursts of fire instead of persisting to struggle against the continuous wind.

The fires managed to get closer to Rachel because of this, and even one as calm as her could hear the racing of her heartbeat as her instincts kicked in and made her leap back before the flames could come crashing down upon her. As the fire left her garden a smoldering bath of ashes, Alex burst forth through the center of them with a fervent roar and his right hand held back. Rachel didn't have time to save herself now, and in a millisecond Alex had pounded his hand against her chest and pinned her to the back of the tower. The impact sent cracks crawling towards the top, and they grew deeper the longer the boy kept her pressed against it.

Rachel's eyes closed for a moment but slowly creaked back open, only to be greeted with the sight of Alex looking up at her with a trembling scowl and a single sweat drop trickling down his forehead. He let out a few shivering mumbles, which is what his rage had degraded to by now, all while cracking his left knuckles as the fingers coiled inward to form a fist.

The vampire looked down at her chest, of which the boy had no qualms applying enough pressure upon it that the rib cage of a normal human would have been crushed, and then looked back into his eyes with a chilling calm surrounding her. That same calm displayed a reckless fearlessness to given position, but Alex had no words for that and just flared his eyes open for a moment while letting out a raspy breath through his nostrils.

"And yet, if the beauty saw the true nature of the beast, her love would be swiftly withdrawn, never to be experienced again…"

Alex lowered his head a little and that obscured his eyes. His lips quivered, and he started to sniffle. With the bare minimum of effort, he threw his punch out and struck the wall far to the left of Rachel's body, which still made it tremble. He spread his fingers out along the wall and bundled rubble from it into his grip, and the pressure he applied to Rachel's chest lessened.

"I lost my parents…I lost my childhood…I lost my home…" Alex pulled his hands back to the side of his hips and gripped them into fists. Rachel dropped to the ground and tried to catch a glimpse of the boy's face by looking up from her shorter position. His eyes were wide and watering, with an expression deep-seated in looking both defeated and angry.

"I DO love her, I DO love Shina, and I'm so afraid of losing her because…because…" He held his hands up aside the front of his face and watched as they trembled before his foggy sight. Horrified, he grabbed the side of his scalp in his right hand and gave a quivering scowl before admitting with a somewhat hoarse voice "I-I'm afraid I'll lose control of my own body!"

Closing her eyes with a contemplative hum, Rachel brushed a hand against the side of her hair and remarked "Whatever do you mean by that? You must certainly not expect me to believe that someone else was guiding your actions…"

Alex widened his eyes and lifted his head a bit, glancing aside while biting his lower lip. Hs sunk his eyelids a bit, his body weighed by the sensation of guilt. He then closed his eyes tight and admitted with some embarrassment "N-No, that's not what I'm getting at." He held a hand against the side of his head, giving himself a couple hard, firm slaps before resting it against the cheek and reprimanding himself "G-God…I was about to do it wasn't I? One more second and Jin's death would've been on my conscience too…"

Rachel kept her eyes and mouth shut, a subtle enough signal to Alex that all he was doing was babbling to someone who did not understand his maddened plight. Holding his eyelids open with the eyes themselves quivering, he slowly laid his hand down at his hip and let out a sigh, murmuring in damnation to his behavior "All because I STUPIDLY let my guard down and listened to him…"

He clenched his fists and turned his back to Rachel, noticing Valkenhayn gripping his stomach at the base of the tower and grunting in pain. Alex sprinted over to him and bent down, offering his hand while saying "And I could've gotten you and Rachel killed as well…You have every right not to forgive me."

Valkenhayn snarled his fangs a bit but swallowed his pride to take the boy's hand, as his abdominal region was too weak to allow him to stand. As he rose to his feet, he nevertheless let out a scathing comment "Hmph, it'll take more than that to seethe my anger, child. But for now, I shall cast aside my grudge for the sake of Madame Rachel's peace of mind. However, after the trouble YOU have brought upon her, I demand you give her an explanation for your uncouth behavior."

Alex glanced back at the vampire as she strolled to the center of her tattered garden, appearing as though she was listening to the conversation. The boy let out a sigh and grumbled out a hesitant "Urgh, fine…" before facing Rachel. Their stares connected for but a moment as the boy looked to the left, trying to keep their eyes from locking again as he was overcome with a bit of discomfort having to bring this matter up.

" _Well, not like I have to tell them EVERYTHING…But since I brought_ _ **him**_ _up…"_

He laid a hand on the back of his head and tucked the other in his pocket, taking his time to say "Something happened…N-No, that's not right…A LOT of things happened long ago that I'm not comfortable talking about. The things I experienced…No human should've had to go through, let alone a little child. Needless to say, there was a point I was left with a lot of crippling trauma and well…M-My body's way of coping it was to uhh…"

He hung his head a bit in shame and murmured "Create a second personality…" Rachel opened her eyes just a bit to comment with a hint of interest "I see. A victim of split-personality disorder."

"Yeah…Pretty much. All the hatred and scorn I felt at the time transformed into my second self. For a time I was ignorant of his existence, thinking that I had eventually just gotten used to what was happening in my life…But I was wrong, so very wrong…See, at one point I fought this evil version of myself. He had all my powers, and somehow all my memories too…Before I killed him, he taunted me, saying he knew all about the type of person I really was…A-And that my existence was a threat to all worlds, especially the one I was on at the time."

"That was when I started to hear whispers, whispers from **him** …My other self. That other me? He tried to present himself as my friend, someone who wished to grant me my innermost desires. But all he craves is to destroy everything, believing that is what I want the most out of everything in the world. And you know what the scary thing is? There's no arguing against that type of person because he IS me. Deep down, I DO want to destroy…I want to kill those who've harmed me, I want to destroy the worlds that abandoned me to suffer, I want to wipe away myself and all the pain that's inside me…"

Gripping the side of his head and gritting his teeth, Alex continued on "But even if he is me, I don't ever, EVER want to be him. I've been wronged, I've been hurt, but god DAMN it I'm still alive despite all this shit so I don't care what it takes…I'm NOT going to let that other side of me take over."

After a momentary pause though, Alex lowered his head and his bravado weakened into a pathetic, self-doubting remark "I wish it was as easy as I make it sound…But it's like I said, the other me is a permanent part of me whether I like it or not. You just CAN'T get rid of a split personality, and lately I KNOW I've been flying off the handle more and more, culminating in what you saw today when I was mere seconds away from losing control for good…"

"These powers of mine…They can do SO MUCH good for these troubled worlds, and I won't deny that. But someone like me NEVER should've been allowed to have them. The Elemental Overlord was a fool for making me the chosen one. Honestly, it'd be better off if I was dead…Not like the universe would lose an Elemental Overlord. I created a clone, a good one, who has my powers without the burden of a split personality or trauma. And last I saw him, he was almost even convinced me to come out of my self-imposed exile."

The boy tilted his head and let out a "Tsk…!" before commenting "His motives were pure, but misplaced…Someone like me is just better off dead and forgotten. At least then the other me would perish too…"

"And yet you're still alive. Does that not strike you as interesting? Surely, even one who wishes for death so strongly must have a reason to live."

Alex spun around and swung his arms out to declare "There IS no reason! I just simply CANNOT DIE!" Rachel raised her brows, then murmured with little surprise "Is it because of your nature as an Elemental Overlord?"

"Maybe?! I don't know!" Alex spoke out in a fluster, then swung his arms beside his head and dropped them at his hips in dejection, shaking his head and telling the vampire "All I know is that I've tried a lot of things…Stabbing my head and heart, suffocation, boiling my innards, starvation…Every time I woke up, back to life like nothing happened. So I ultimately wandered around the world, a nobody without a purpose…"

"…That is, until I met her." Alex's tone got a bit more uplifting despite a trace of melancholy mixed in. He looked up towards the sky, recapping to the vampire the beginning of his current venture "I was with a former comrade at the time…A rugged veteran of battle kind of like Valkenhayn, but with the intelligence and somewhat questionable methods of Kokonoe…But ultimately someone I could trust enough to stick around and humor his attempts to help me, for how little good they sadly ended up being…"

"Either way, months passed with him until one day I ended up getting called down to the prison ward. Someone had approached the base I was at, and said they wanted the Elemental Overlord. When I arrived at her cell I was taken aback. For the first time in years I laid eyes upon a human that wasn't a clone of myself, and she was beautiful…Hair as golden as the sun, eyes shimmering like radiant emeralds, a smile as perky as her demeanor, and a delicate but mature body…"

"A-Admittedly, the only other women I could compare her to at the time were a few people I was too young to have developed an interest in and my own mother…But that didn't matter to me. I thought Shina was the most beautiful person in the entire universe. It seemed too good to be true that she there, especially as the truth came out that she came here to find me, ME, of all people!"

"I listened to her lay everything out for me. How she wanted to save her people, what her family meant to her…God, I understood more than she knew what it was like to want to keep a family forever, and never let them go…But I was uncertain of going with her until I got a bit of a pep talk from my comrade. He convinced me to give a shot for the sake of getting experience as an Elemental Overlord…But I also wanted to try, just one more time, to remember what it meant to be 'Alex Whiter'."

With half a smile, Alex rolled his hand at his side and regaled in an abridged version of the early parts of his journey "Course, once we actually got out there traveling, I started to see the rougher edges of that little gemstone I cherished. She was easily distracted, a bit clumsy, and overall just uncertain about herself. But through all that, her heart shone brighter than diamonds. She was polite, selfless, and just a whole bundle of fun…Hell, a couple times she even got me to laugh and remember what it was like to feel young again."

As he tucked his hands into his pockets, his back hunched a little as his shoulders sagged. With a fondness that brought his heart to ache, he murmured "Hell…W-We even became friends." He then let out a heavy sigh and shook his head, with a deeper voice remarking "But our relationship can't ever be anything more than that. Not while that 'Phoenix of Destruction' remains a part of me. So long as he's there, Shina will always be in danger. It was nice that there was still enough good in me for her to consider calling me a friend, but once I've gotten her through this quest to save her people then that's it…I'll hide myself in some desolate corner of the universe and let old age hopefully put an end to me and that monster."

"…Are you done with your little pity party?" Rachel commented with roguish wit, causing Alex to swing around and throw out an insulted "What?!" The vampire held her right hand up, continuing with a curious inquiry "You have said nothing of these matters to the girl, have you?"

Squinting his eyes with a puzzled scowl, Alex replied "Why the hell would I?" to which Rachel was blunt in her answer "Then you're giving up far too soon. You said it yourself that she has made you feel more alive than you have in years, and yet you would surrender that happiness all to fulfill your selfish, suicidal urges? Foolish…simply foolish."

"…L-Look, it's better if she doesn't have to worry about a possible monster being at her side at all times." Alex stammered with his eyes shut tight. Rachel smiled and with eyes partway opened humored him "Could it be that the legendary Elemental Overlord's greatest obstacle to a girl's heart…Is him coming down with an unfortunate case of cold feet?"

"NO! I-I mean maybe…? …y-yes…" Alex blushed and glanced aside while Rachel gave out a soft chuckle. Flustered to an absurd degree, Alex yelled at her "H-Hey, not like you're any different when it comes to Ragna!"

Rachel's face went stoic with a curt hum, and she put her hand up to bring a lightning bolt down right upon Alex's skull. The boy hopped to the left and then right and back again to avoid her assault, swinging his hands up when he was done and waving them to get back on topic "A-And besides! It's not just about a-admitting my feelings…I-I have to figure out the right way to tell her the truth about myself, you know?"

He bit down on his lower lip and mumbled "I mean…it's easy to admit it to you two, I'm never going to see you guys again…We still have another stone to pick up after this and god knows how long THAT'LL take. Can you imagine the tension between us if I half-ass this shit?"

"You can determine that on your own time. Now that you've made yourself at least a little presentable again, there are more pressing matters to attend to."

Alex snapped his fingers a couple times and said "Right, right, I'll uhhh…deal with my confession AFTER we've stopped Nu for good. So…guess all we can do now is wait for the time loop to restart, huh?"

"You may do so if you wish, but you may be interested to know a little something more about your mysterious pursuer."

"Wait, what?! Tell me, please! I don't even know what this bastard looks like! If you can at least tell me that much, I-" Alex was eager to plea for the info, but Rachel dashes his all hopes by remarking "Unfortunately, Takamagahara was unable to discern their identity. All they know is that after your scuffle with Terumi, a mysterious presence made contact with him in the Boundary. They were able to determine that they were the same person you're dealing with based on a connection they had to the same aura the little doll has."

"…They made contact with Terumi? Don't tell me they're planning on giving the artifact piece to him!" Alex still remembered how horrific such a possibility would be. This time, Rachel was able to give him a little hope by saying "I know not what that being desired from their encounter, but the doll still retains the artifact. I merely offer these words as caution to you for the next time loop."

"Ok, alright…" Alex laid a hand on his chin and tensed up a bit. Terumi had been absent in this time loop, but it seems he was only lying in wait until he could unleash a devastating scheme with the help of that mysterious being. With that in mind, Alex tensed that hand into a fist and held it before his chest, looking Rachel straight in the eyes as he remarked "Then I think it's time I put a stop to Nu once and for all. No more games, no more distractions."

"You said that the last time…" Rachel pointed out, to which Alex shook his head and grinned.

"This time around, I know what I must do. Ragna's been shit out of luck in helping because he's not gotten a chance to activate his Azure Grimoire against Nu so far. If I get him to Kagutsuchi HQ and convince him to use it, then with Shina, him and I working together we'll definitely take Nu down for good!"

"Do you believe Ragna will be convinced by your words? Lest you forget…"

"Right, right, the memories of old time loops thing that's my fault…" Alex clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and looked glanced around. Folding his arms, Alex's brows shot up as he realized "Oh, I got it!"

He looked at Rachel and asked "You said earlier that you can interfere in my affairs because I'm not from this world, right? So the same thing should apply to Shina, yeah?" She gave a nod and he asked "Then next time loop, could you bring her here and pass on my idea to her without…you know…"

"I'm sure she wouldn't believe you responsible for such plans in the first place." Rachel said with a sly grin. Alex crossed his arms and remarked "Now there's still the matter of Noel, Jin and Hakumen…And I have to keep an eye out for Terumi too."

Pausing with a couple blinks, Alex looked at Rachel with a somewhat insulted expression and asked "Wait, has she been going around calling me an id-" Before he finished, Valkenhayn's claw pierced through his heart, leaving a gaping hole in his chest as he ripped it back out a second later. As Alex dropped to the ground with mouth agape Valkenhayn shook the blood off and with a smile remarked "Now…I forgive you, child."

Rachel closed her eyes and murmured "How crude of you, Valkenhayn." The butler bowed and was quite apologetic "Forgive me Madame Rachel, sometimes it's hard to ignore my more…vulgar side."

Rachel closed her eyes and began to fall back, with Nago transforming into a soft throne for her to sit upon. She leaned an elbow atop the right arm of the throne and nestled her knuckles against her cheek, crossing her legs and pondering what occurred "I wonder…What fate shall befall Mr. Whiter from this point on?" With a tiny smile, the vampire admitted "Hmmm…How curious that I would find myself bewitched by the affairs of this outsider. You have a chance to make this a most interesting of climaxes, Mr. Whiter…Do not leave me disappointed."

 _Next Time: Hope and the Reaper_


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27: Change the Fate**

After another time loop had gone awry, Shina was a teensy bit miffed at having to walk through Kagutsuchi again, but took the time to think about what had happened with Jin. Wiggling her right fingers along her chin like she was gliding along the keys of a piano, she looked towards the sky and murmured "He didn't have that strange aura the first time I ran into him…"

With lips puckered up and arms crossed under her chest, she pushed her brain to try and figure out just WHAT the purpose was to Jin getting in her way. The motives of the being trailing her and Alex was a mystery locked tight in the mind of an enigma, and she was humble enough to admit that the truth was far beyond her reach.

" _Don't know who they are, what they want, what they look like…Shoot, don't think I've even heard 'em speak. But they've been aiding villains and possessing good folk like Dizzy and Jin…sort-of, to do their bidding. Some point or 'nother, I gotta bring that person to justice."_

As she rounded a corner and looked towards Kagutsuchi HQ, Shina pushed a fist up from her crossed arms and stuck it between her chest. With brows nudged down and a brave glare, she commented "Jin stopped me stone cold…"

Her accidental quip broke the determined demeanor she had so she could let out a somewhat juvenile giggle, after which she continued her thoughts with a chipper tone "But it's fine! I'll just go back up and wait for Alex again!"

With an embarrassed smirk and glance towards the right side of her face she whispered "Should probably avoid helping Noel too…Hard as it'll be to anyways. Alright, off I-" With one foot up halfway, Shina is then whisked away in an instant by a rosy wind, bringing that foot down atop a bed of roses another instant later.

"-go!" She swung her left fist up with arm bent at a perfect ninety degree angle ready to break into a victorious strut when the sights of a Halloween themed expanse made her stiffen in that pose and blink twice.

"H-Hubba wha?!" She blabbered in confusion, a feeling that became quite fleeting as she realized where she was. Lowering her arms to her hips, she spun around and found herself greeted by the domain's host, who needed no introduction.

"Rachel?" Shina spoke their name in surprise and began scratching her cheek with a single finger while the vampire just stood there with a lofty air surrounding her. Closing her eyes just a bit, Shina tilted her head left and right while keeping the finger laid across her cheek.

"Ummm, why did you bring me here?" She got straight to the point, a little hesitant because their last encounter wasn't exactly pleasant for her. Rachel closed her eyes and leaned back, Valkenhayn dashing on by in a blur to lay a porcelain chair at her beck and call. The vampire softly closed her hand into a fist, and laid it against her cheek.

Meanwhile, a table was placed before her along with a ruby red cushioned stool and a pair of tea cups, all within the span of a couple seconds. Valkenhayn then stopped beside the chair in a pose so graceful that it was like he had never been sprinting at all.

With a bow the werewolf poured some tea into Rachel's lifted cup and smiled. The vampire found herself smiling a little as well, though it wasn't too noticeable from the distance Shina stood. After taking a sip of tea, Rachel tilted her head aside and laid a hand out across the top of the table with a pleasant invitation "Come, sit, child of the aura."

"Weeeeell…I don't wanna offend but…" Shina grinned and with a wince and a smile she murmured "Tea's not my…cup of tea."

Rachel raised her head a bit, closing her eyes and letting out an internal groan. She then brushed a hand to put a loose pigtail back into place before saying in a stern voice "Then you may simply seat yourself. There is something I wish for you to know…"

Shina fluttered her eyelashes and went to the stool. She sat with legs bent over the edge and hands atop the knees, looking Rachel straight on and giving her the utmost attention. The vampire laid her cup down and noted "You look quite chipper for a girl cleaved and torn asunder many times over…"

Shina dug her fingernails into the stitching of her jeans, wrinkling it while lowering her head a bit and saying with a hint of melancholy "It's not like it stops hurting, but…" With a thrust of her head up she gave Rachel a firm glare and stated with honesty "I vowed to myself that so long as I'm alive, I'm not going to let this pain drag me down."

"An admirable show of resolve. A far cry from the pitiful girl I saw before…" Rachel commented after a few seconds staring into Shina's unflinching eyes. As the vampire took another sip from her cup, Shina smiled and said with a whisper "Thank you…"

Silence permeated the garden for a few moments, as Shina looked at Rachel and mustered up the courage to be more honest about her feelings towards them. When the vampire gave her an absolute display of her attention, Shina remarked "You know, you were really rude to me last time…"

"And yet, did my advice not bear an inkling of truth?" Rachel inquired with a stern, unrelenting discipline in her tone and demeanor.

Shina lowered her head and with a weak smile commented "Well, y-yes. I shouldn't have bothered to help Roy and the others…Not when there is a more pressing matter to deal with." Then she shot up off the stool and slammed both her hands on the table, exclaiming to the vampire while trying to remain as kind and respectful as she could "But you didn't hafta be so mean about it! So please, could you apologize for being rude?!"

Valkenhayn's expression turned to one of surprise, then his fangs bore a sour scowl as he murmured into Rachel's ear "Hmph, these children have some nerve, don't they?" The vampire's expression, however, was a smile she hid from her butler via the hand laid against her cheek.

"Yes, quite so…Yet, in this instance, such nerve should be praised. It may very well be that such a thing will be what decides the fate of our world, Valkenhayn." When the words of his master strayed towards approval of her company, Valkenhayn lifted his head up with a disgruntled growl and was hesitant to remark "I beg to disagree, but if your efforts bear fruit then I will still my tongue post-haste, Madame Rachel…"

Rachel peeked her head up a bit and murmured "Very well. I offer my utmost apologies for my uncouth behavior. Now then, please, sit back down. Time is of the essence."

Satisfied with the apology, albeit with a bit of shock that the vampire even did it, Shina was slow to sit down and return to her original posture. Rachel then took another sip of tea and held the cup before her chest, commenting with a dignified tone "Perhaps you already know, but I am an Observer. It is my duty to watch the world from a distance, and do nothing to interfere with it's affairs…"

Shina gave an affirming nod, and the vampire moved on without breaking her demeanor "Yet, you are not from this world, are you, child of the aura?" Shina widened her eyes and leaned her head forward a bit, asking with haste "Wait, you're familiar with my power?"

"But of course…A man by the name of Gabriel came to this world with the original Elemental Overlord long ago, and helped the Six Heroes to face the Black Beast that had been empowered by the artifact trapped within that pitiful jar…"

"Gabriel?" The name rung a bell in Shina's mind, and she scratched at her chin while pondering to herself "I mean…wow, I knew he was a Planetary Aurian and all, but he never struck me as someone who was two-thousand years old like mom and Gravitus…Hmmm…"

When Shina became aware of Rachel giving her an impatient glare, the girl repositioned herself and with a swift, firm nod she said "Sorry! Continue!" The vampire closed her eyes and continued in such a natural manner it was like she had not been interrupted "So I wish to impart to you a tidbit of advice. One that you may use at your discretion to change the fate of this world if you so desire."

Shina leaned forward, the stool creaking under the pressure of her forward weight until she laid her stomach against the rim of the table and widened her eyes with great intrigue. Rachel opened her eyes and remarked "Seek the one who rebels against the turmoil of the world, the taker of lives, the reaper of souls…The one whom you may know of as-"

"Ragna the Bloodedge?!" Shina jerked back so hard the stool swung off it's front legs, forcing her to wave her arms out in circles until it plopped back down. With her heart racing she slapped the side of her face and lambasted herself with merriment "Shina ya idiot! Ya shoulda remembered him sooner!"

"…I beg your pardon?" Rachel murmured, finding herself at a loss of words for once as her expression stayed motionless with a blank glare. Shina flicked only a pointer finger up from her right hand and responded "I'm sorry I can't tell you why, but I knew about Ragna the Bloodedge the whole time I've been here. It just must've never crossed my mind to ask for his help cause he's like, the only person I hadn't run into this whole time!"

"Such a thought never crossed your mind?" Rachel inquired, to which Shina gave her two swift, energetic nods with a lip-pressed smile. The vampire closed her eyes and let forth a tired sigh, whispering to herself "Honestly, you two imbecilic children are meant for each other…"

"What'dcha just say?" Shina asked with a tilt of the head, somewhat making out what the vampire had said from the way her lips moved. Rachel rested her head upright and responded with a graceful calm "I am not at liberty to say any more than what I already have. If you are aware of our little Grim Reaper, then I shall leave the matter of finding him in your hands."

"…I don't think you'd be interfering in world affairs or whatever if you acted as my GPS for just a teeny, weenie bit…" Shina gave the vampire a close-eyed smile while tapping her pointer fingers in a slow rhythm before her chest. Rachel closed her eyes and with a smile remarked "May your efforts be fruitful, Ms. Aurora…" and with a wave of the hand used another rosy wind to send Shina off on her way.

The girl wound up exactly where she was before, surprising the crowd that had surrounded the area she appeared at. She wasn't aware of their murmurs until her rear hit the ground, which jolted her eyes open and greeted her with the return of Kagutsuchi's urban atmosphere. She rubbed the side of her bum and looked up the crowd that stared down at her, and in a haste waved a hand up and said "S-Sorry folk, just practicing Ars Magus, nothing to see here!"

With face red she cracked an embarrassed grin and hopped to her feet, running past the crowd until she was somewhere more secluded to gather her thoughts. With a brisk stroke of the side of her hand across her forehead and a sigh of relief once she found a safe spot, Shina leaned back against the rugged brick wall behind her and laid her hands beside her hips against it, staring back up at Kagutsuchi HQ with plans a-brewing.

"Alrighty, time to find Ragna. It shouldn't be too hard. His aura's probably black, broody, and sprinkled with a bit of hatred inside… Plus, I can EASILY cut him off on the way to the HQ. The only problem is…" Shina crossed her arms under her chest and pushed them up a bit, remarking with slight concern "How DO I get him to help me?"

She knew it wasn't going to be easy. Ragna's a loner-type, much like Alex can tend to be at times, and even though she was wanting the same thing as Ragna that meant nothing simply because of who he was. More than likely, it would all come down to a fight between the two, and there was no guarantee that Ragna would cooperate even after that.

"But I'm not going to let that stop me. I'll be more stubborn with him than anyone has ever been stubborn before!" Shina brought her hands up for a resounding clap then brought them back at her hips, pushing herself off the wall and breaking into an immediate sprint through the city. Her knowledge of the place proved crucial towards getting to her destination, a bridge a couple levels below the HQ, without wasting a single second.

At the south end of the bridge, Shina bent over and laid her hands on her knees to catch her breath. When she was done she swung right back up and scanned the crowd walking back and forth along it. She closed her eyes to try and discern Ragna's aura from the rest. Amongst the many blues, greens and reds was one violet-black aura that was very pronounced in it's color and jagged appearance.

A brief chill wiggled it's way up the nerves of her spine, a feeling that was similar to but less powerful than that coming from the Black Beast. Shina opened her eyes and the red jacket and white hair of the Grim Reaper were clear in sight. With a nervous gulp that formed a thick lump in her throat, Shina ran through the crowd until she was right behind Ragna. Not wanting to scare the crowd, she didn't yell out his name and instead went just a tiny bit faster than his current pace until she was within arms reach so she could tap him on the back of his right shoulder.

Ragna's advance came to a sudden end, and in turn so did Shina's. He glanced over his shoulder with a droll stare and took a couple steps to turn around. His fists were at his hips, and he kept an uncaring aura around him as he forced himself to ask "Can I…help you?"

Shina's heart fluttered like tiny butterfly wings in her chest, and she lifted her head up to gulp again before trying to put on a brave face and whispering "You're…Ragna the Bloodedge." Ragna raised his brows and made a swift assumption "What, are you some kind of bounty hunter?"

The girl shook her head and told him "No, no I'm not." Ragna then started to form a scowl and gave an irritated remark of "Then you must be part of the NOL."

"It's nothing like that! I'm-"

"Then you better scram. I'm the _'Grim Reaper'_ , a wanted criminal. Do you WANT to end up dead, kid?" Ragna closed his eyes and looked more annoyed than before, grumbling out to Shina as he turned back around "If you know what's good for you, get out of my sight now."

He only got a couple steps away before Shina puffed her cheeks and swung her fists down in anger. Then with a deep-throated growl she sprinted around him and got in his way with arms swung out as wide as her muscles would let her. Her shoulders trembled, but her heart did not. Looking Ragna in the eyes with a firm glare, she watched as he cracked a scoff through his scowl and started to move his hand towards the handle of his blade.

"I gave you a warning, now-"

"I want to help you destroy the Murakumo Unit!" Shina declared in haste. Ragna's hand gripped around the sword, but he held it there while his eyes widened and his skin turned a lighter shade. Staring at Shina as though he was looking at a ghost, Ragna didn't even blink as he told her in a quiet, blunt voice "I don't know who the hell you are or HOW you learned about that, but fighting that thing is NONE of your business."

"Yes, it IS!" Shina held her ground and stayed as stern as she could, even as she could sense aggression pouring out from all across Ragna's body.

"The Murakumo Unit has something inside of her that I need to get. And she's too strong for you to handle by yourself. You NEED my help." No matter how much Shina stressed the importance of that, Ragna wasn't in the mood to listen. He leaned his head forward and pressed his forehead against hers. Shina's irises shrunk and her heart skipped a beat as he cracked a scowl and told her with a blunt, graveled voice "I don't need ANYONE'S help, least of all YOURS."

He then grabbed her by the underside of her right elbow and tried to get around her while saying "Now, get out of my way" only for Shina's hand to latch around his wrist as tight as she could. By then Ragna's short fuse was about to go off, and the metal of his blade grinded against the sheath on his back as he pulled it out,

"Fine, you want to play tough? Then I'll MAKE you get out of my way!"

"If we have to fight I will, but there's too much at stake for me to back down now! If I don't defeat the Murakumo Unit, then my people are doomed, along with everyone I love…" Shina closed her eyes a bit and recalled them with a nostalgic fondness "Mom, Gabriel, my little sister Kairi…" before gritting her teeth and declaring to Ragna "I'll fight you to an inch of my life if that's what it takes to get your help, but I'm NOT going to let them down!"

Halfway through unsheathing his blade, Ragna stopped and his aggression dulled to a point that he no more threatening than a puppy. He looked Shina in the eyes and bit his lower lip, lowering his head as his grip on her arm loosened and a wave of melancholy washed over him.

"Saya…" Was all he muttered, his voice so quiet it was a wonder Shina could hear it even this close to him. Ragna squinted his eyes shut and let go of Shina's arm, lowering his hand behind his hip while putting his sword back in. Backing up a step, Ragna growled and with great hesitation said "Fine, do whatever you want. But I don't want to hear a single peep out of you unless I ask, you got it?"

Shina's eyes lit up and her expression returned to it's perkier self as she leaned a bit to the right and swiped a hand out from her forehead, about to proclaim "Okay!" before catching herself by sucking her lips inward and instead giving the Grim Reaper a firm nod. Ragna then closed his eyes and let out a long, tired sigh.

"As if this day wasn't long enough…Whatever. Get a move on, I want this branch destroyed before Midnight." He began to move on, and before following Shina pumped her fists beside her chest and thought _"Off to a great start! This is it, I can FEEL it!"_

She joined Ragna in his trip through the remainder of Kagutsuchi. The unfortunate thing though was that she had to go at HIS pace instead of her own, meaning the trip took a bit longer than she expected. It was a boring trip to boot, as she didn't want to agitate him by talking and he was too reclusive to say anything himself, but at the same time that quietness was appreciated as it gave Shina time to prepare herself for the final battle.

By the time they were at the top, night was falling upon the city. Shina looked at the full moon and thought _"Wow, that took longer than I thought, but that's alright!"_ She was ready to fight, but before her and Ragna climbed the staircase he let out the first noise in a while in the form of a grumble as he turned himself around and asked "Hey, you, can you even fight?"

Shina tilted her head and with a puzzled raise of the brows stated as though her competence in battle shouldn't have been questioned "What, don't think I can?" She flicked her right hand up and summoned her rapier, catching Ragna by surprise. With a merry grin she said "Wouldn't be here if I couldn't hold my own!" Ragna didn't acknowledge her blade at first and lowered his head, his forehead crinkling as he appeared deep in thought about something that troubled him.

"A blade that can be summoned at will…"

His right brow twitched as he grit his teeth, while Shina dispelled her rapier and inquired "Something the matter?" to which he opened his eyes and gave a blunt response "None of your damn business, ok?! God just…why the hell does the way you call your weapon feel familiar?" He grumbled the last part of himself, irritated by familiarity itching at his mind like a rusted nail.

Shina stared at him and thought _"Must be residual memories from an encounter with Alex. I'll just…let him sort this out on his own."_ She held her hands behind herself and swayed back and forth until Ragna muttered in frustration "Screw it, it doesn't matter anyways!"

He then looked up at Shina and made haste in saying "You're able to fight, that's good enough. Lets get this over with…" He turned around and began to go for the staircase, and Shina stayed close behind without saying another word for now. Halfway up the stairs, he paused and raised his right hand to the side of his head. Giving it a hard scratch, his body shook with a great unease.

"There's no way that I climbed these stairs before…is there?"

Shina could feel his confusion and annoyance at it brimming around his aura. She knew why Ragna had to be feeling this way, and those memories of old time loops plaguing him gave plenty of incentive to end these cycles now so the pain of remembering wouldn't get any stronger.

Ragna clenched his fist and socked the side of his hip, growling out "Damn it what the HELL is going on here?! Is this some screwed up feeling of déjà vu?!" Shina didn't want to reveal the truth, but there WAS something she could say to alleviate some of Ragna's stress.

"Maybe it is. I heard some stories about people who've subconsciously dreamed about their own futures. Or who knows, maybe you're a SHIFTer who has access to the Morphogenetic Field!" Ragna just glanced over his shoulder with the most uncaring of glances and said "…What the hell are you talking about? Subconscious dreams, Morphogenetic Fiend? What a load of nonsense…"

That moment of supposed idiocy distracted Ragna enough to get him to start climb the stairs again, letting out a grumbling sigh. At the top of the stairs, Ragna looked at the imposing door and murmured "An Ars Magus barrier…" He then laid a hand against the front of it and the back of his glove opened up for a moment. The Azure Grimoire spread blue cracks throughout the door and the seal blocking it shattered.

Ragna paused as he pulled his hand back, staring at it with his teeth grit and a mumble of "I…knew this was coming." He shook his head and clenched the hand into a fist, punching the door in front of him to take out a bit of his frustrations while also pushing it open. Shina winced as Ragna's knuckles cracked on impact, but the Grim Reaper thought nothing of the pain and moved his hand towards his sword while remarking "Alright, there's going to be opposition. You better not hold me back, kid."

The two entered the building after Shina nodded her head, and they crawled along at a slow pace towards the foyer. Ragna looked left and right and then straight ahead, while Shina kept her hands at her hips and looked ahead.

" _Will we find Noel here…Or Jin?"_ Though there was a little worry about it being the latter, it was relieved thanks to Ragna's presence. The Grim Reaper stopped when he was at the end of the hall, the foyer clear as could be. He hunched forward and could be heard gritting his teeth, and when he was down like that Shina was able to look ahead and see who was waiting them. One of the few people who could leave Ragna feeling pure, seething hatred.

"JIN!" Ragna pulled his sword out and leaped across the foyer, drawing it behind his back while Jin grinned and pulled Yukianesa from his sheath the moment Ragna dropped to the ground with a slash. Their blades clashed, but Jin was fighting with his own power this time instead of being enveloped by that dark aura. Shina breathed a sigh of relief, but soon felt her body being riddled with shivering goosebumps as the tension in the room grew thicker than stone.

Ragna and Jin swung their blades at each other in an endless flurry, sparks flying around their bodies as neither gave in to the others' power. Jin giggled with a ferocious insanity behind it as he and Ragna stood close to each other and locked their blades in an unwavering stance.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it brother?! I've been SOOOO looking forward to kill you!"

"Shut up Jin! This time I'm going to kick YOUR ass!" Ragna's remark got him grimacing before he mumbled out with his blade shaking "T-This…time?"

He lost the clash of blades and was forced to hop back, with Jin pulling back his sword and slicing it forward with all he had to try and strike Ragna with a elongated whip of ice. Ragna spun his sword before himself to slice the ice asunder, then gripped the handle in both hands and exclaimed "Goddamn it! Get out of my way Jin!"

Shina stood back in the hallway, whistling to herself while her eyes gazed all around the room save for where the battle took place. She swayed her hips to and fro with hands folded against the back of her rear. Not wanting to waste energy prematurely, Shina looked towards the battle for a moment and raised her hands back up to make an awkward gesture towards a statue she planned to hide behind.

"L-Let me know when you're done!" She proclaimed, going quiet near the end when she realized how pointless it was to try and break through the unfolding, furious clash between brothers. She then shuffled herself over to the hiding spot and peeked around the corner. Though it was a little sad to see siblings fight each other, Shina did find herself smiling and feeling as giddy as a little girl all over again because of how exciting the battle was.

 _Meanwhile…_

Outside of Kagutsuchi HQ, Alex was running his way up the staircases to the top level of the city. He was trying to keep a smile on his face, as for once in his life hope was in his heart.

" _I've stocked up on elemental energy, the Gaia Temporis is firm in my pocket. HOPEFULLY Rachel got Shina to go pick up Ragna. Everything's raring to go, time to make that bitch Nu pay for all the destruction she's caused in both the past AND present!"_

At the very top of the stairs he spun himself so hard his legs went flying to the left away from his body, at least until he dug his shoes into the ground to stop himself. A cloud of dust kicked up around his body, and he brushed the top of his left hand under his chin. With a solid grin he remarked "And perhaps give Terumi a piece of my mind as well."

He looked up at the door and saw it was wide open. Not only that, but he could feel a battle going on inside. With ice and darkness intertwining and fading in and out, it only took a moment to realize what was going on. There was no signs of Shina's involvement, but a feeling deep in his heart led him to believe that she had to be there already.

"Finally. Don't worry Shina, this time I WILL rescue you from this nightmare!" He took a step forward and was to break into a valiant sprint when all of a sudden…

" **EHEHEHEHEHE! Oh…You should be worrying about your own nightmares, you ornery little SHIT!"**

As Alex's ears were assaulted by that cackling wail, he turned right around and the atmosphere far around him was consumed within a field of darkness. His body stood in the middle of it with a translucent glow as he was transported into an unknown domain, whose skies were composed of a blended mixture of purple, yellow and black fog.

The boy didn't let himself get taken aback by the change in scenery and drew his sword in his right hand, staring straight ahead as who else but Terumi would have the gall to stroll into view in front of him. The man cocked his head up just enough to peek past the lip of his hat with his snaky yellow eyes and coy grin. With a heavy, irritated growl that rippled his scowling lips, Alex prepared himself for whatever Terumi had in store for him…

 _Back in Kagutsuchi HQ…_

It was a hard-fought, chaotic battle, but Ragna managed to take Jin down and leave him lying on the ground unconscious with a bit of blood trickling out of his mouth. Ragna placed his sword into his sheath and commented "Now stay down, crybaby" before letting out an annoyed sigh. He then glanced to the left, where Shina was coming out from behind the statue with a cheery expression and her hands clapping three times per second.

"Congratulations Ragna!"

The Grim Reaper tensed his grin and leaned his head back, telling her off as she got close "Couldn't be assed to help, huh?" Shina held her hands together and as she slowly parted them from her chest she remarked with an aloof tone to her "Well I didn't wanna use my trump card so soon. Kinda like how you didn't use the Az-"

Ragna's brow-raised glare silenced her on the spot, and she giggled while placing her hands into her pockets and changed the subject "S-So shall we head to the Cauldron?" Ragna lowered his head and turned for the stairs going downward and began to head towards it.

Shina hummed and followed him a moment later. The two went down the stairs until they were at the lift. The journey was no different from any other, save for the sense of finality that this one had. Shina smiled and was reflecting upon what had happened through this leg of her journey.

" _I can't wait to tell sis that I've gotten to leap through time! Ooooh, she'll be so jealous! …S-So long as I leave out the dying bits."_ Closing her eyes and letting out a serene sigh, she knew one thing for sure _"This journey's been tough…Tougher than anything I ever have and probably ever will go through again…But when all's said and done there's no way I regret anything I've done. Both good and bad…All of it's been important to me."_

"Hey, get on." Ragna broke her concentration with a curt reminder to stay focused. Shina widened her eyes and smiled from cheek to cheek as she joined the Grim Reaper on the lift. It descended to the Cauldron in a couple of seconds, leaving this sinful creation in plain sight right in front of them. Ragna laid a hand on the handle of his sword and walked out at a slow pace, carrying a heavy air as though he was just trying to get through another day on the job.

Shina summoned her rapier and joined him from behind, sticking close while taking each step with her body sideways. When they were halfway to their destination, a calm but powerful wave of energy washed over the two and froze them in their tracks.

"Dark One…So, finally you arrive."

Ragna and Shina spun to the right, both of them stiff in the knees with their hands shaking. Shina could describe this intense feeling overcoming her body down to the finest detail. What she sensed wasn't just pure strength, but a discipline so refined that none in this world could match it. This was a peerless aura, one she could always sense around the likes of Gabriel, only now it was pointed her way by someone who wanted to make it clear as day that their mission shall not be deterred. With a firm gulp, Shina stared straight at Hakumen as he walked out of the shadows with Ookami drawn and pointed straight at Ragna.

" _So, it comes down to him, huh? One of the Six Heroes is the last obstacle between us and Nu…I can't believe I never ran into him before now."_

It would be difficulty to overcome Hakumen's incredible power. Strength, skill, he was the complete package, the perfect warrior, but that just made it all the more imperative to defeat him. Ragna was at her side, and no matter how bothered the Grim Reaper was at her presence she could tell that even he knew that they would have to work together to prevail. Hakumen, with hair waving via the silent winds that covered this corrupt domain, focused only on his mortal foe.

"Now, let us begin…I shall sever the threads of our intertwining fates."

 _Next Time: Black and White_


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28: Waking from the Nightmare**

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, you masked bitch, but you're in my way!" Ragna drew his sword in both hands and pointed it at Hakumen, his kneecaps trembling while the armored man didn't look the least bit intimidated.

"Can you even fight, Dark One? Your legs are trembling." He remarked, raising his head just a tiny bit as he gestured the blade at Ragna's feet. The Grim Reaper grit his teeth, his eyes flaring wide open before exclaiming "Shut up! You're the one who should be scared!"

"There is nothing I fear in this world. Not even you, nightmare." Hakumen, with that calm declaration, swung his blade back and gripped the massive handle in both hands, standing sideways and keeping the blade before his chest.

"Hmph, then I'll show you the true definition of fear, you arrogant S.O.B." Ragna was at the ready to fight despite what his body language displayed, but as he stepped one foot forward Shina got in his way and got him declaring "Get out of my way!"

Shina shook her head twice, giving Ragna only that bit of acknowledgement before addressing Hakumen with a respectful inquiry "Mr. Hakumen, can I have a moment of your time, please?" Ragna stood upright and laid his sword as his hip, remarking in a dull, suspecting tone "Hakumen? THE Hakumen of the Six Heroes? Yeah right, he's only a-"

"…Who are you?" Hakumen's sudden response to Shina's words made Ragna's eyes widen in disbelief, and the subconscious fear in his body now had an explanation seeing how he was in the presence of one of the legends who helped slay the Black Beast. With Ragna in a temporary state of shock, Shina took the lead in the conversation.

"My name is Shina, Shina Aurora." She kept her cool even though a bit intimidated by the warrior's presence, and laid a hand on the center of her chest while asking "I know you feel the power of the Black Beast within Ragna, but he's not our enemy. The Murakumo Unit in this Cauldron-"

"I am well aware of that sinful doll. But they are merely one half of the cause of this calamity. To put an end to this nightmare once and for all, the Dark One must also perish." Hakumen made his stance clear as could be, but Shina nevertheless tried to sway it.

"Is there nothing I can say to make you change your mind?" She asked in a pressing tone. Hakumen let out a slow sigh, turning his body so he could hold his blade at the ground in one hand while raising his other hand beside his face.

"I remember…There was a promise I made a time before to spare the Dark One, where they believed that the nightmare could be ended without spilling the Dark One's blood. And yet, the nightmare continues, and the world once again repeats itself." Hakumen returned to his original posture and gave a firm warning to Shina "Stand in my way at your discretion, but know that my patience has run thin. On this day, the Black Beast WILL perish…Both body AND heart."

Shina puckered her lips into a tiny frown and then released a sigh. With a shrug of the shoulders she then looked back at Ragna in the midst of turning herself around and walking away, remarking to him in a perky tone "Sorry! I tried my best!" When she was beside him she spun around and started reaching for the Gunslinger Drive on her wrist.

"Whatever…" Ragna grumbled. He then raised his sword towards Hakumen and told him "YOU are going to kill ME?! Give me a goddamn break. You're going to be bleeding all over the floor by the time I'm done with you!"

Shina activated her Drive and surprised Ragna with a flash of light from her transformation. He turned his gaze towards her for a moment, noticing her change in outfit before he let out a dry comment of "You know, now's NOT the time to be putting on less clothes."

Shina pointed her pistols at Hakumen and her determined expression turned to one of momentary embarrassment, complete with a luminescent blush as she moved her eyes to the side without shifting her face and told him "F-Forget about it, o-ok?! Just get in close and I'll cover ya from here!"

Hakumen paused and hummed with a bit of intrigue as he looked towards Shina, while Ragna charged right in and swung his sword downward, letting loose a furious roar. Hakumen twisted his body a bit to the left and held his blade out to protect himself. Ragna was suspended in mid-air for a few seconds as the two clashed, only for him to swing his blade out and bounce back a few feet away from the warrior.

Hakumen raised his blade up and prepared to bring it down, only for a few of Shina's aura bullets to strike his armor and make him take pause. She stayed where Ragna once was, holding her pistols in perfect alignment with Hakumen's body so not a single one would stray off and hit the Grim Reaper.

The armored man took a moment to assess his two opponents, in that time Ragna sprinting right over while dragging his blade along the ground in preparation for a darkness consumed upward slash. Hakumen jumped five feet back, swinging his sword in a downward arc to intercept Ragna's blade and dispel the darkness.

As he landed, a foot-long aura rocket zoomed over Ragna's head and curved down to go for Hakumen's chest. He responded by slicing his blade down and cleaving it in two, but both sides blew up with a blinding flash of aura and left the man grunting in annoyance as his vision was robbed at the moment. Ragna ran ahead and jumped on top of Hakumen's blade, pressing down on it with all he had so it couldn't be raised against him as he leapt off it and held his sword far behind his head.

"Got you now you masked bitch!" He exclaimed as he brought it down with a jagged arc of darkness left in his wake. Hakumen let one hand go and swung it up in a second to meet the darkness with one of his barriers, which made the darkness scatter to the winds in a burst while the ground cracked at Hakumen's feet.

"Is this all you can MUSTER?!" Hakumen thrust his hand past the length of Ragna's blade and twisted it around to grab onto his wrist, then he pulled him over his head and slammed him against the ground, the impact to the back of his head causing him to lose his grip on his sword. Hakumen stabbed his blade into Ragna's left shoulder as he turned around, then cut up through it as he gripped the handle in both hands and raised Ookami above his head.

"You disappoint me!" He exclaimed as he readied a finishing blow. Before the blade moved an inch, Shina came flying in with a blast from her gunboots and swung her left leg up, pressing it against Hakumen's back while pouring into it via the ropes on her wrist bracelets. Charging the boot to full power, she let loose a blast of aura with the kick rivaling a mad bull's charge, making her leg recoil into a bend while sending Hakumen flying over Ragna's body.

With steam sizzling out of his back, Hakumen pushed his weight down to land, having maybe a couple scuff marks on his armor. He turned around one slow step at a time and pointed his blade at Shina, once more letting out a curious hum. Shina helped Ragna up, and he held his sword in his left hand while grasping the wound on his shoulder.

"Damn it…! Why isn't it healing?!" He exerted frustration with a wince of his eyes and a pained scowl, while Shina laid a hand on top of the wound and started pouring a bit of her aura into it.

"It's because of his Nox Nyctores. It can negate the power of the Azure. But my aura, on the other hand…" Pulling her hand back, Shina watched as Ragna's wound began to stitch itself back together, and the Grim Reaper himself stopped wincing in pain. With a smile, Shina pointed out "It can patch you up just fine!"

"…Well shit." Ragna whispered with a hint of surprise, and after a couple blinks he cracked a tiny grin and commented "Guess you're good for something after all."

Shina tilted her head and giggled with eyes shut, then took a couple steps away while aiming a rifle at Hakumen's chest. The armored man look at her and remarked "I see, so you are a disciple of aura. To think that your power would be capable of overcoming the ability of Demon Killer: Ookami."

"I'm pretty surprised myself!" Shina exclaimed with honesty, causing Ragna to tilt his head towards her and yell in a flabbergasted manner "You did that on a whim?!" Shina rubbed the back of her head and stuck out her tongue with a giggle.

"It worked, didn't it?"

"I will not allow you the chance to heal the Dark One's wounds again." Hakumen was confident in his vow, and he began to raise his sword high above his head with a wintery energy swirling into the blade.

"Prepare yourself, Dark One. For your end has come…" The Cauldron began to tremble, and Ragna grit his teeth and with a panicked look in his eyes declared "Shit, that's a ton of power he's got there!"

"Empty Sky Form…SUMMER'S ADVANCE!" Hakumen swung his blade down, releasing the energy into a slicing wave across the ground. Ragna and Shina leapt in different directions, with Hakumen shifting his body forward and gliding along the ground towards the Grim Reaper. Shina locked onto him with her scouter and whipped up a sniper rifle. She aimed for his head and pulled the trigger, firing a piercing round that streaked across the air in the span of a millisecond.

Hakumen ducked his head, the bullet grazing the top of his ponytail, and began to swing his blade upward towards Ragna's neck. It was a surefire way to avoid further use of Shina's power on the man by just killing him outright, and Ookami would make certain that his Life Link with Nu would not bring him back to life. With her heart racing, Shina shifted the aim of her rifle towards the top of Hakumen's left wrist. She hastened to charge a shot that would be bigger and stronger than the last, but only had two seconds to do so.

Had she hesitated just a second more, it would have been too late to save Ragna, but when the bullet flew out and rippled the atmosphere in it's wake Shina managed to score a clean hit across the top of Hakumen's gauntlet and leave a curved mark across it. The force of the bullet also shifted the way the man gripped his blade, causing it to be shifted downward enough for Ragna to have the time necessary to swing his sword down and clash with it.

The blade was locked into position in alignment across the length of his right arm, and he gripped it down with all he had while sparks flew forth and tickled the sides of his face. Hakumen rose up, putting all he could into the strength of his blade. With such a disadvantageous position, Ragna's wrists twisted as his sword was shifting to the point where it'd be aligned with the front of his face, and Ookami would cut his neck.

"Shiiiit…!" Ragna grit his teeth and hopped back, allowing Hakumen to finish the rest of his swing while he lashed his blade at the ground to launch a Dead Spike at Hakumen. The man swung back down with little exertion and negated the projectile, transforming it into a small black vacuum sphere. Ragna dug his feet into the ground to avoid being dragged in, but Hakumen prepared to dash at him through the sphere so he could cleave his target in two.

He pulled back on his advance when Shina fired a rocket at his feet and created a towering plume of aura flames. Hakumen let out a calm hum and stood his ground, twisting his head so he'd be able to focus on both his opponent at the same time. A second later, Ragna came flying past the fading flames with his sword drawn back in his left hand and a roar of "CARNAGE-"

Hakumen interrupted his charge by swinging his blade right out in a horizontal arc, smashing it clean against the sharp edge of Ragna's sword. A shockwave ripped through the air and Ragna was sent grinding back, his sword spinning out of his hands and flying back until it stabbed the ground to the right of where the Grim Reaper ended up. Ragna's left arm limped at his hips, his bones cracked and the muscles wobbling like gelatin. He reached for his sword and started to stand back up, a cold sweat trickling down his cheeks while his teeth were locked into a vicious scowl.

"You're going to pay for that one…!" He declared, to which Hakumen swung his blade at him and retorted "And how do you plan to do that when you won't even fight seriously?!"

Shina glanced over at Ragna, who gave a bitter gritting of his teeth towards himself. Looking back at Hakumen, she closed her eyes and thought _"He really SHOULD be using the Azure, but if he's not going to then perhaps I should…"_ She started to reach for the Valkyrie Drive when all of a sudden, three golden rings of increasing size drop down from the sky and bind themselves around Hakumen.

" _O-Or Kokonoe can just come save the day…That works too!"_ Shina gave a flabbergasted stare at the Grimalkin's timely intervention, watching as Hakumen's arms were pulled into his hips and his body was distorting in and out of view.

"Ghhhh…How dare you interfere, Grimalkin!" Hakumen was furious, his calm breaking with a resounding echo of his voice. But he was already on his way out, so all his rage would amount to no-

" _ **KSSSSSSSSSHHHH!"**_

" _Oh…SHOOT!"_ Shina's face lost the ability to relax, and her eyes widened twice with her lips puckering inward as she watched Hakumen release a distortion of energy from his armor that shattered Kokonoe's teleportation spell into numerous golden shards that vanished into the ether. Ragna freaked out, exclaiming with his heart seen beating like a drum against his chest "H-How the hell?!"

Hakumen leaned forward, taking a moment to raising his right hand and clenching it into a fist while tightening the grip on his sword. He stood up, swinging and opening his empty hand out while proclaiming "There will be NO more interruptions. This shall end only with your demise, Dark One!"

As he held himself in that pose, Hakumen started to be consumed by the appearance of a dark purple aura around his body. Shina focused on that and squinted her eyes a bit, puckering her lips outward while thinking _"Oh so that's it, that mysterious jerk gave him the power to break free."_ However, it didn't take long for Hakumen to start trembling and clenching his hand underneath his mask, confusing Shina quite a bit.

"Grhhh…So you are the monster who has tampered with this world?!" He was fighting back against the power enveloping his body, something that took Shina aback as she didn't consider such a thing possible. The Cauldron trembled, and with all his might Hakumen declared "I shall **NOT** be your puppet! Begone from my mind, YOUKAI!"

Stretching his arms out like he was pulling something apart, Hakumen left Shina stupefied as he shattered the strange aura into nothing. Her chin dropped to the bottom of her neck, and she let out some stuttering gawks while trying to piece together how he managed to pull that off. It took her but a couple seconds to remember what the Power of Order was and then proceed to give herself a prompt slap to the side of the face.

" _Right…right…Stupid Shina…"_ After a quick head shake, her and Ragna's ears were assaulted by Kokonoe's voice calling to them.

" _Shit! He wasn't supposed to be able to break free of that! What are the two of you standing around for?! Get your asses in gear or he'll kill you both!"_ She warned them in a panic. Ragna grimaced, muttering in surprise "Wait wait hold on! Just who the hell are you?! A-And are you talking in my head?!"

" _Do you really think you should be giving a shit about that now?! I'm telling you to run! You can't defeat him!"_

Ragna froze up, curling the right of his lip up into a scowl as he closed his eyes and mumbled in anger "Can't defeat him…?" Shina knew that Kokonoe had just then set off one of Ragna's personal tics, something the Grim Reaper was more than ready to let everyone in this room know as he flared his eyes open and threw his sword into his left hand, gesturing it straight at Hakumen.

"So what, you're telling me to give up?! Like hell I will! I'm sick of people like YOU underestimating me!" He thrust his right hand in front of his face, the seal on the back plain in Hakumen's line of sight.

"Dark One? Grim Reaper? I don't care what the hell any of you say. There's only one 'me' in this world, and he's not going to take your shit anymore you masked bitch!" Ragna pulled his fingers back just a bit, cracking his knuckles as Hakumen gestured his sword his way and declared "So…You're finally planning to fight seriously."

Ragna ignored him and exclaimed to Shina "This isn't your fight anymore, get out of here, NOW!" She shook her head and reached for the Valkyrie Drive as the bracelet was crossed before her waist. Smiling at the Grim Reaper's determination to not back down no matter the obstacle, she stated with brimming confidence "If you're worried I'll succumb to the Azure's influence, don't be! Let it loose, Ragna the Bloodedge!"

Ragna cracked a smirk and for a moment closed his eyes, murmuring with a hint of surprise "Well, alright then…" He then swung his eyelids open and glared at Hakumen with all he had, exclaiming to the seal on his hand "Restriction 666 released!" The seal parted, darkness gushing out and wrapping itself around his body in a thick aura.

"Dimensional Interference Field Deployed! BlazBlue…ACTIVATE!" After the giant crimson symbol representing his power engulfed his body, the darkness compressed into a hard shadow behind his body. He clasped his sword in both hands and swung it before his chest, exclaiming with all his might "Get ready…you son of a bitch!"

In that time Shina had finished transforming into her strongest form. She was now decked in a thin but form fitting silver chest plated with ridged cups, shoulder plates with three tiny wings on each, white leather gloves and pointed-end sapphire gauntlets, an armored skirt consisting of seven diamond plates with firm leather shorts behind them, and white stockings tucked neatly into her lithe diamond boots. Her hair flowed with a sleek, aquamarine coloring as radiant as opals, and in her right hand she wielded a four foot long, one foot wide sword with a bright silver-blue coating and downward pointing golden wings at the sides of the handle.

Her demeanor was more confident like a warrior of Hakumen's stature, but she still basked in an aura of bubbliness and generosity. Giving a smile to the curious armored man, she spun her sword around loose from her grip and plucked it out to pointed out from the side of her face, exclaiming to him "We're going to end this nightmare on our own, Mr. Hakumen!"

Hakumen stared at her, then at Ragna. A calm air flowed over his body like a sub-arctic breeze, leaving his hair fluttering behind his helmet. He gripped Ookami and turned it around, positioning the blade before himself and laying a couple fingers near the top.

"If this is your strength, then I shall hold nothing back. I am granting you the honor of witnessing this power in your final moments, Dark One, may you not disappoint me." His hair rose and spread out like the many tails of a kyuubi as his entire body was bathed in a thin, foggy white aura. A seal appeared at his feet, and the click of a lock coming undone could be heard from his armor. The whole Cauldron trembled for five seconds, then went as silent as the warrior himself as he returned to the stance he was most comfortable with.

"Empty Sky True Form… **Light of Judgment**!"

Ragna grinned and took a second to boast to the member of the Six Heroes "So this is your true power…Heh, then you must be pretty damn scared of me right now!" Hakumen did not dignify that with a response. Mincing words in such a vulgar man was beneath him. Instead, he dashed forward faster than it would take one to blink, and swung his sword right up towards Ragna's chest.

Ragna brought his own blade down with the force of a one-ton guillotine, slamming it into the middle of Ookami and pressing hard enough to force it down until it was even with Hakumen's waist. The armored man let go with one hand to give himself more maneuverability at the cost of strength, and hopped back while stabbing his sword out a few times to aim for Ragna's vitals such as his heart and liver.

Shina was at his side, creating tiny, barely visible barriers of aura to block every attack. Hakumen landed on the ground and swept his left leg back so he could swing his blade out to meet Shina's arching downward slash. The two of them clashed blades a couple more times until Ragna dove at him from above with a right claw of darkness, forcing the armored man to deliver a heavy 180 degree swing to repel Shina and give himself enough time to hop a foot back before Ragna could force him to the ground.

With the claws impaled into the ground, Ragna dragged them back and left scars in his wake as he got up and charged right at Hakumen with sword swung back and his eyes glowing bright. He created a thick crescent of darkness from his blade and lashed it right out at Hakumen, with the man holding one of his gauntlets up and protecting himself with a barrier. Ragna's blade, however, proved mightier than Hakumen's basic defenses and smashed the barrier to pieces while assaulting him with a wave of pure darkness.

"Tsk…!" Hakumen gave a quick but harsh critique of his own hubris and then fought back by stabbing his sword straight into the center of Ragna's chest. The Grim Reaper grimaces and spits blood from his mouth, but doesn't break character and swings his blade down with all his vigor at Hakumen's mask. He responds by pulling his blade out, blood and all, and thrusting his free hand up to catch the blade.

The darkness scattered, but Hakumen found his right knee giving in and bending down from the pressure applied to his palm. What appeared to be success on Ragna's end turned out to be a feint on Hakumen's, as he quickly pulled his leg from the ground and with great agility and dexterity did a short hop and kicked the bottom of Ragna's wrists while leaving a streak of black ink in his wake. Ragna's blade was sent spinning skyward, but with a roar the Grim Reaper pulled his right fist back and made it erupt with a thick darkness.

"Show me your face already!" He exclaimed as the fist went flying towards Hakumen's chest the moment he landed. The armored man was forced to take the punch, which pushed him back five feet and left marks on his chest. But it also put him above a glowing circle of aura that Shina had summoned by stabbing the ground with her blade.

Before Hakumen had a second to move, a shining saber stabbed forth from the circle that knocked him into the air. Shina pulled her blade out and gave it a quick spin before holding it beside her head and lunging forth like a lightspeed bullet off the ground. She ran her sword across Hakumen's body from the side, then turned around on a dime and attacked him from another angle, repeating the process eight more times with increasing speed and ending by stopping right above him and spinning around with blade glowing bright.

She pushed a miniature comet of aura out to knock Ragna's blade back down to him while simultaneously slashing her sword downward with all she had. Radiance flooded the room for a moment, while Hakumen managed to bring Ookami up just in time to block Shina's attack even though the impact still sent him hurtling towards the ground.

Ragna, in the meantime, wrenched his sword in to the grasp of his left hand and swung it back. He charged forward with all he had and slashed it in a hard arc against Hakumen's body to smash and send him bouncing off the ground.

"This time you're mine…CARNAGE SCISSORS!" He spun his body around and launched a scissor-shaped blast of blood from the ground that rammed into Hakumen full-force and knocked him into the wall above the right hall. He left a minor indent and dropped to the ground in a span of three seconds. His legs gave in for a moment, but he kept himself erect with his peerless dignity intact and a bold remark towards his mortal foe "Is that all you've got, Dark One?"

Shina landed beside Ragna and held her sword towards the ground beside her hip, staring at Hakumen with a bit of surprise at how much punishment he was taking from the two of them with his armor looking little worse for the wear.

" _Well it is the armor of a god, course it'd be a tough nut to crack!"_ Feeling immense excitement, Shina's heart fluttered against her chest and she was about to lunge herself straight at Hakumen when a pulse of aura emerged from the man and riddled her body with goosebumps.

" _T-This is…!"_ She froze up with a foot stumbling forward, but Ragna did not receive a similar feeling as he grit his teeth and declared "I'm nowhere near done!" before swinging his blade at the ground to send a larger Dead Spike at Hakumen. Before the projectile ran it's course, Ragna leapt across the air and swung a claw of darkness behind his back.

"I'LL DEVOUR YOU!" He roared, unaware of the absolute state of calm Hakumen was in as he raised his blade in a straight, horizontal line before his chest. In anticipation for the Dead Spike, the armored man created a multi-layered barrier in front of his body bigger than he was. Shina widened her eyes and stabbed her blade into the ground, throwing her hands up and launching a thick, protective blast of aura from her palms.

" _Please make it in time!"_ She could only pray for the projectile's speed to be true as she closed her eyes and waited for things to play out. Ragna swung his claw down at the Hakumen right as the Dead Spike made contact with the shield. Time stopped, the world blanketed in a void of white save for the people in the Cauldron, who were bathed in an inky ebony. Hakumen looked at the visage of Ragna coming down with his claw spread out as large as it could and broke free from the frozen time, pulling back on his blade and lashing it out with one hard, singular stroke.

"BEGONE FROM THIS WORLD, NIGHTMARE!" He roared as dozens of slashes blanketed the area around Ragna's body to the point that once time resumed, he was sure to be dead. Hakumen turned away from the Grim Reaper and hold his blade in the sheath as the atmosphere shattered, remarking in a callous voice "Farewell, Ragna the Bloo-"

" _ **KSSSSSSHHHHH!"**_

A sound similar to glass shattering is all that entered Hakumen's ears, followed by the fervent roar of Ragna as he continued to come at him unopposed. The armored man spun his body and prepared to draw his blade, but it was too late as Ragna enveloped him in the thorny grasp of his claw and hoisted him off the ground the moment he landed.

"I-Impossible!" Hakumen could only declare until he lifted his head up enough to see Shina, who had been pushed back a foot from her earlier spot and was leaning forward panting a bit. The two then realized at that moment that her aura managed to reach Ragna just in time to protect him from Hakumen's ultimate counter technique. Ragna, the only one unaware of this fact, cracked a cocky grin and exclaimed "Game over, you arrogant bitch!"

A puddle of dark blood formed at Ragna's feet, and from it a flood of darkness shot forth in a needle-like rain and bombarded Hakumen's body for five seconds. Then, Ragna tugged back on his arm and dispelled the claw in a burst of darkness that sent Hakumen flying up and crashing on his back with a pained grunt. With a big smile, the Grim Reaper held his hand down and took a moment to catch his breath.

Hakumen, even after enduring an attack like that, started to push himself off the ground and was bending at the knees in a matter of seconds. Ragna raised his head and found himself inquiring "Oh come on, what'll it take to keep you down?!"

" _Don't worry about it. I'll take it from here."_ As Kokonoe spoke to Ragna and Shina again, a new set of seals bound Hakumen in place. He grunted and wiggled his arms around, but this time they were not going to budge. He was too weak to call upon the Power of Order.

Ragna looked at the armored man, a dull, unsatisfied look on his face as he murmured "That's it? Seriously?"

" _What, you expecting a treat for all your hard work?"_

"Grrr, well no, but…Whoever you are, you better keep this asshole on a leash this time."

" _Yeah yeah, you two just worry about that damn Cauldron, I'll deal with grumpy gus here."_

"Ghhh, you will regret this decision, Grimalkin." Hakumen grunted as his body began to phase in and out of view. He lifted his head up and stared straight at his mortal foe, telling him "This isn't over, Dark One…"

"I'll gladly kick your ass anytime, you masked bitch." Ragna got in one last remark as Hakumen was ready to be sent off, but the man didn't acknowledge him again in turn. Instead, he turned towards Shina and laid a hand to cover a scar across his chest.

"…I see now that the successor's concerns were unwarranted…" With that murmur towards himself, Hakumen was warped away. The exact moment he was gone, the Cauldron began to activate. Ragna closed his eyes and grumbled "If it's not one thing it's another…" and turned towards it.

He shifted his glance at Shina, who kept her Valkyrie Drive active and stood with him looking out towards the Cauldron. She was a bit antsy, taking in deep but vocal breaths, to which he asked "What's up with you?"

She turned her head a bit to the right and murmured "N-Nothing at all! What about you?" Ragna closed his eyes and didn't say a word at first until he looked back at the Cauldron and saw the chrysalis rising up.

"…That feeling of déjà vu's not going away…Have I actually…been here before?" He closed his eyes and grit his teeth. Were it not for the fact that it'd only make his mind more unfocused, Shina would have explained that feeling to him.

" _But…it'll have to wait…"_ She had to resign herself to that decision as the chrysalis was opening, and Nu was emerging. Ragna gripped his sword and mumbled as the doll floated forward "Shit, it's already booted…"

Shina held her sword tight in the right hand, the Murakumo Unit center in her line of sight as she landed on the ground and opened her eyes with a deceptive tender smile and giggle. Ragna could be seen shivering from head to toe, a cold sweat trickling down his face before murmuring "W-What the hell's going on here?"

"Hehehe…Oh, there you are Ragna! I was waiting for you to show up!" Nu's cheek lit up with a translucent blush, and Ragna inquired with dulled confusion "Waiting…for me? What the hell are you talking about?!"

Nu's lips returned to their neutral position, and with a deep sigh she shook her head and belayed her disappointment in a perky voice "Awwww, you STILL haven't figured it out Ragna? Well, you never were the sharpest tool in the shed after all, hehehe!"

Ragna dug his fingers into the side of his face and growled out "I don't know what the hell you're talking about! A-And stop speaking with that voice!" Nu pulled her head back a bit and with a malicious sneer whispered "But Ragna, it's me…Saya."

"LIKE HELL! You're just some goddamn…abomination!" A roar of indignant fury ripped forth from Ragna's mouth, to which Shina tried to prevent more from coming by stepping forward to get in his line of sight.

"Don't listen! She's just trying to mess with you!" When she yelled that, she just ended up getting Nu's attention more than anything.

"Hehehe…Well well, look who finally came back to be skewered again. I almost didn't recognize you without all of your blood covering your body!" Her first acknowledgement towards Shina made her spin around with a skip of her heart beat and the fingers that held her sword trembling. Nu let out a pleased sigh and then closed her eyes, a smile brimming from cheek to cheek.

"And look at you, hand delivering Ragna to me on a silver platter! Guess you have to be good for something, right?" Nu raised her hands up for a shrug, only for Shina to have the tip of her blade an inch from her chin a second later.

"I'm not delivering Ragna to you! We're here to defeat you for good!" Shina declared, but Nu just shook her head and didn't seem the least bit intimidated.

"Defeat me for good? Haven't you and that little boy gotten tired of being so wrong yet? Doesn't matter how you cut, shoot or slice it, you can't change fate! And me and Ragna…our fate is more intertwined than even the stars in the night sky…" Nu's voice grew lucid with a blush in her cheeks, and she found herself unable to look Ragna straight-on.

"Go to hell you bitch." Ragna growled, but that just turned Nu on even more as she erupted into a gleeful cackle and exclaimed "Oh Ragna…For you, I'd go ANYWHERE! And besides…" With a coy grin she gestured a hand out towards Shina and remarked with a callous voice "Who's going to stop me? You?"

Nu close her eyes and retracted her hand, commenting as Shina's eyes were hidden behind the shadow of her bangs "It doesn't matter how many people you bring, what power you can muster…Nothing in this world is stronger than the love Ragna and I share! Hehehe, or do I need to remind you how pathetic you looked screaming the name of that worthless boy? And you put all your faith in him for nothing…He couldn't stop me no matter how hard he tried, and now look…He's given up on fighting me entirely! You-"

"You're right, he's not here." Shina whispered in a deeper tone than usual.

"Huh?" Nu was confused over being interrupted, and she stood there with that same puzzled expression as Shina lifted her head up and stared at her with a fire in her eyes brighter then the aura encircling her body. She pulled her sword up and held it out before her body, standing tall and refusing to lose focus on the Murakumo Unit.

"But I AM here, and I swear on my family name that I won't lose to you!"

"Pfft, nothing but worthless bluster. You really ARE an idiot."

"I am an idiot, yes…Probably'll be an idiot for most of my life, but that just means I'll always be able to learn and grow as a person through the experiences in my life both good AND bad. See, that's your problem Nu…I look at your aura, and I can tell you've suffered a lot of hardships on account of the way you were born into this world." Nu's usual cockiness started to fade, with her lowering her brows and her lips retreating back to a normal size as Shina kept talking.

"But the way you've chosen to cope with it? There's nothing right about it at all. I get that you felt alone, and more than likely Saya's memories caused you to get attached to Ragna…But this way of expressing your love is wrong and twisted. You can't force someone to love you. True love is something you build up to through many experiences between two individuals over the course of days, weeks, months even! It's a selfless connection that you may not even be aware is forming, but when you do manage to make that connection it's the most satisfying experience in the entire WORLD!"

Shina punctuated her speech with a bright smile, closing her eyes as Nu lurched her head back and started shaking with a scowl. But Shina wasn't done there, as she looked down at a reflection of herself in the blade. She saw her family, the people she's made friends with on her journey so far, and then finally Alex. Closing her eyes again, she made her point plain and clear for the Murakumo Unit "That's why you'll never defeat me Nu…Because I'm fighting with a love in my heart for all things near and dear to me. Even if none of those people are here, I can feel their bonds giving me strength, the strength to defy even fate itself!"

Shina's body illuminated with a purifying, burning aura, the back of her hairs rising up as she was consumed in a tender warmth. Nu stared at her for a few seconds, then pulled her head back and held her hands upright near her hips, breaking into a cacophony of laughter that echoed across the room for a good ten seconds. The Murakumo Unit then wiped the tears from her face and swung her head forward with bloodshot eyes and a lopsided jaw.

"What a load of DRIVEL, huh Ragna?! Hahaha, our love IS true love, right, right?! The only person you can possibly love in this world is-"

"Will you just SHUT UP ALREADY?!" Ragna burst into seething rage, veins popping on his forehead, and Nu reeled back a bit with a frightened look in her eyes. The Grim Reaper walked around Shina and thrust his sword at the Murakumo Unit's chin. His eyes projected a glare without mercy towards the one before him, and now he had words to say to her.

"I came here to destroy you. Whatever 'love' you think there is between us? It's a load of nonsense, and even if it wasn't do you honestly think I give a shit? You're just another godforsaken abomination I have to remove from this world, no different from the rest."

Nu's face twisted right at that moment, the left side of it rising up out of sync from the rest of her expression, creating a malformed grin and making her stammer out in heartbroken disbelief "N-No different from…the rest?"

"Ha…haha…Hahahaha…HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!" Nu jerked her head back in one swift motion and dug her fingernails into her face, tearing the skin and flesh right off while rambling on to Ragna "AM I DIFFERENT NOW RAGNA?!"

She then swung her head forward and plunged her fingers into the circumference of her left eye socket, pulling the eyeball, stalk and all, right out while yelling "HOW ABOUT NOW?!" As she splattered her eye onto the floor, Shina and Ragna's stomachs churned. Nu then swung her arms out and pleaded with all she had "I CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT RAGNA! I CAN CHANGE FOR YOU, REALLY! JUST SAY THE WORD AND I'LL BE WHATEVER YOU WANT ME TO BE! I-I can only obey your every whim, Ragna…"

"…I want you to be dead already." Ragna growled with a reasonable if somewhat callous voice. Nu's mouth stayed agape for a few seconds before she clenched her teeth down tight and started stamping her left foot on the ground, clenching her fists against her hips to the point of drawing blood from the palms as though a child throwing a temper tantrum.

"It's not FAIR! Why…why can't you just remember all the good times we had together?! When we destroyed the world, burned all in our way to nothing?! I gave you what you wanted, and you made my life fulfilling!" She turned her head towards Shina, and on the spot her body stiffened as a gruesome scowl crossed her face.

"You…!" Speaking with a hatred so fierce it rattled her esophagus, Nu's body erupted into the pitch black aura as the Murakumo sword dropped behind her. Her wounds started regenerating. As the bonded with the sword, she let loose a damning roar "YOU DID SOMETHING TO MY RAGNA!"

Fully bonded to the blade, Nu rose into the air and called her blades to her side. A voice as rough as gravel, she screamed at the top of her lungs "All of you…ALL OF YOU KEEP TRYING TO TAKE RAGNA AWAY FROM ME! WELL…WELL YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM! I-I'VE HAD IT WITH BEING DENIED HAPPINESS AND LOVE…IF I CAN'T BE HAPPY, THEN NO ONE IN THIS WORLD DESERVES TO BE EITHER! I-I'LL MAKE SURE OF IT…THIS TIME, RAGNA AND I WILL DESTROY THIS WHOLE WORLD UNTIL THERE'S NOTHING LEFT!"

Ragna and Shina took up their blades. Nu was furious, which made her both unfocused yet at the same time far more dangerous than before. Shina knew, deep in her heart, that this would be the toughest battle of her life…

 _Next Time: Wrath of the Ouroboros_


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29: The Scent of Madness**

 _Meanwhile, back with Alex…_

Alex and Terumi stared at each other from across this strange realm the snake seems to have trapped them inside of. The boy kept his sword suspended out along the side of his chest while taking every moment he could to glance around.

" _Damn it, no one can probably see this sphere from the outside."_ Was what he assessed, taking into consideration Terumi's meticulous nature. He then looked back at the man, who stood with an eerie calm, and told him with a blunt, eyebrow slanted stare "I knew you were coming, Terumi."

"Oh good for yooooou…" Terumi clapped his hands in a drawn-out manner before the chest, his tone dripping with sarcastic praise. He lifted his head up a bit and with his fanged smirk and eyes glowing bright asked "What, you want a medal or something? I knew you'd have known long before I got here."

"Because of that bastard following us around, right?" Alex inquired, tilting his head a little to the left with a suspecting glance towards Terumi, whose mouth widened to a full-on grin as he clasped his hands before his chest.

"Oh yes, I had a nice chat with that intriguing 'friend' of ours. Learned quite a few iiiinteresting things about you, I must say. Course, don't know how much of it is true, so perhaps you could back up their facts…Phoenix of Destruction." Alex's eyes froze on a stiff, strained glare as his mouth was held in a tiny frown. Terumi let out a brief giggle and commented "Now THAT'S the kinda look I want to see! Eyes glacial with fear, face stiffer than wood, and a body trembling in agony!"

Alex readjusted his expression into a sterner glare and tight scowl, exclaiming to the man amidst his premature arrogance "Like a few words from that bastard makes a difference Terumi! I hope you enjoyed the trip to the Boundary, cause I'm about to send you somewhere _MUCH_ worse!"

He then thrust his sword towards Terumi and began reaching for the triggers on the handle, refusing to give him an inch after he managed to escape last time. But as the boy's fingers were laid on the front of the triggers, a jolt of magical energy shot forth from them and up into his arms. It was a short, prickled feeling, but enough to loosen his grip on the blade and make the eyelids closed for a moment.

The blade didn't even reach the ground, as it was wrapped up in a bubble of lavender energy that had a few golden circles surrounding it, each connected to one another by a series of strange lines. After shaking the sensation free with a wiggle of his wrist, Alex grit his teeth and thrust a hand out to call the blade back. However, he received no response, and the bubble began to float over to someone who had just appeared without a sound in the air off to the left of Terumi.

They were a being without a visible body, composed of nothing more than a folded together witch's cloak and witch's hat, with a tattered white and pink two-sided scarf waving at their sides. The being floated without even a sound coming from the movements of their clothing, and yet they stared out from the void of their "face" with a malicious intent. Alex was forced to watch as this "Phantom" parted their cloak and swallowed his trapped sword inside of a gruesome black and red pocket dimension.

Terumi, meanwhile, reached for his right pocket and commented "Now now…" before pulling out a butterfly knife and flicking it around in his hand without so much as leaving a scratch on his skin. He held it by the extend handles and propped it up near his face, wiggling it around while taking a moment to mock the perplexed Alex with a raspy glee "Little boy's shouldn't be running around with knives! EHEHEHEH!"

After shaking his wrists a little more and letting out a terse growl, Alex stood upright and held his hands up before his chest, bending the elbows back a bit. Knowing that Terumi was trying to rile him up, Alex did his best to keep his calm as he spoke "Should've known this was the Phantom's doing."

"Ehehehe! Yes, she IS a very handy tool, ain't she? But my appreciation once again must go to our little friend, both for rescuing that otherwise worthless No. 13 from falling into the Cauldron AND for telling me how to separate you from that accursed sword." Terumi then swung his left hand up and made the Phantom disappear with a snap of the fingers. He leaned forward a little, twirling his knife around his pointer finger while having a malicious look in his eyes towards Alex.

"I don't NEED a sword to end you, Terumi." The boy commented with a confident air around him. Then, with a curt scoff from the left side of his mouth he projected an aura of fire around his body and stated "Sorry, but your plan for revenge will end before it can even begin."

"Re-VENGE? You think this is all about…revenge?! Ehehehe, just how PETTY do you think I am, boy?!" Terumi exclaimed with arms swung out at his hips, earning a tiny brow raise from his company. The man then laid a hand on the side of his head and shook it while pulling back and enjoying a little more laughter before thrusting up and getting right to the point.

"No no no, make no mistake, all I'm doing is cleaning out a bit of….unnecessary clutter, if you would."

"And just what is THAT supposed to mean?"

"Why, you know way too much for your own good. When first we met I thought that it was the shitty vampire who told you about my true identity…But then you mentioned a certain Imperator and I found myself thinking 'Hmmm, there's no reason to believe that bitch could POSSIBLY know about HER'." Terumi, after rubbing his chin for a few moments, pulled it away with a forceful swing and said "And as it turns out I was RIGHT! You've known AAAAALLL about our world before you ever set foot here!"

" _Son of a bitch! That's the last thing these assholes need to be learning about!"_ Alex thought as his body gave off a brief, frightened twitch that did not surpass the notice of Terumi's perceptive glance.

"Ehehehe! You're starting to lose your shit, aren't you boy?! Face it, whatever advantage you thought you had over me is LOOOONG gone now!" Terumi's eyes widened more to the point of the veins being visible within. He was relishing in his glee like it was nothing more than a nice, hot shower, and his mocking gestures towards Alex did little more than wear down his patience. So in a haste, the boy tried to turn the man's arrogance against him.

"You're a fool Terumi. That bastard's just using you as a puppet." But it was to no avail, as Terumi swung his head forward and with his mouth agape in a crooked manner he exclaimed " **I'M** the puppet?! Boy you don't even KNOW how ironic that accusation is coming from YOU!"

Alex's nostrils flared open with his eyes widened, and Teurmi just feasted upon the rage building in the boy's body with a delighted gliding of his tongue along the bottom and tops of his teeth. He then straightened himself upright and flicked his knife back into the pocket, remarking in a more docile but scathing tone "Oh who am I kidding, words are wasted on you."

With a wide grin, Terumi's body was then consumed by a certain purple aura, with his eyes glowing dark red and his power raised a bit. Alex grimaced for a second and then stood his ground, watching as Terumi leaned back and crossed his hands above the lip of his hat. Black and green darkness burst forth from his hands as a green seal briefly formed at his feet the moment he declared "Restriction 666 released! Dimensional interface forcefield deployed!"

The realm shook, something that did not occur when Ragna activated his Azure. Alex stood without fear, yet could not feel even the least bit calm about what was happening. Terumi was holding nothing back against him. More than anything else at the moment, he wanted him dead on the ground, writhing in despair. The man's course of action was easy to discern, but difficult to stop due to the many methods of which he could take that course. And of all methods, Alex was not expecting to be robbed of his sword.

" _But I don't need it. Terumi can handicap me all he wants! …It'll just make it all the more gratifying when I finally rid the world of him for good."_

"Hehehee! Allow me to show you…The ultimate despair! Code S.O.L.! 'BlazBlue,' ACTIVATE!" The trembling stopped all at once as a barrier of unfamiliar green glyphs emerged and surrounded Terumi. As he jerked his body back up, his hat came off and his hair spiked up, for now his body was fully embracing his true self. As the man cracked his maniacal grin and swung a hand beside his head, he summoned a few phantasmal green and black serpents to coil around the outside of his body.

"Hmph! Like an Azure scares me! I beat this power once before, I'll do it again!" Alex boasted with all he had, while Terumi giggled and responded with an air of perfection and glee around himself "You mean little Raggy's? Ehehehe, by the time I'm done with you, I'll show you that his 'Azure' is just as much of a fake as you are!"

"Now then, you nosy little liar, time to pay the price for your interference!" Terumi indulged in a tone of pure ferocity before he flicked his right arm out, calling forth the power of his Ouroboros from a tiny green seal. The snake-headed chain opened it's mouth and flew towards Alex's chest. In a second it was there ready to chomp down, only for the boy to make a sharp hop to the left just in the nick of time.

" _I can't just go charging in. His field is able to drain my life essence and feed it to him…But with Ouroboros he could drag me over. Luckily for me, he can only use one chain at a time, so now…!"_ the moment he landed, Alex threw his right arm back and gathered in flames for a large fireball, which he swung at Terumi as though pitching a fastball in a baseball game. Terumi raised his brows and pulled Ouroboros back, twisting his body a bit to swing the chain through the fireball.

"You'll have to do better then that! Come on, show me some of that RAGE!" Terumi thrust his hand back out to send Ouroboros flying back at Alex. The boy had to take a couple slow steps back to avoid it, but this time the head chomped the empty air and held onto it.

" _Shoot, that's right!"_ Alex widened his eyes and watched as Terumi lifted his feet up and used the chain to fly right over to him in a snap. Alex swung his right fist up towards the man's chest to intercept him, but Terumi whipped one of his knives from the pocket and jabbed it up towards the underside of the boy's arm.

Alex's heart raced and he jerked his arm back, getting a nick on the knuckle of his middle finger for the trouble. Though it left a painful jolt through his hand, Alex flicked that finger out and blew Terumi back a good few feet with a blast of air, and then with a hop back the boy was out of the range of Terumi's barrier.

The man landed with his hands tucked into his pockets and his feet grinding up the ground. He lifted his head up with a fascinated grin and remarked "What's wrong? Why don't you come CLOSER?!" He summoned another Ouroboros chain from the center of his chest, but this time Alex was prepared for it and stamped his right foot on the ground to summon a small pillar of ice to envelop the chain as it got close.

Alex then hopped and kicked the heel of his boot against the ice to knock it off the ground, where the recoil of Ouroboros dragged the ice back to Terumi. Keeping his grin, Terumi leaned his back in a slant and called forth a pair of dark serpents from the ground. They leapt forth in an arc and smashed the ice down to dust. Through the dust three streaks of lightning shot forth and struck Terumi's chest with the force of hammers, burning holes through his clothes and leaving black burns on the skin.

"Ghh…!" Terumi grunted for a moment and then whipped his hands from his pockets, spinning his two knives around to unsheathed them from the handles before flicking one straight through a hole left in the dust. Alex swung his head to the left and only lost a few loose hairs. His heart kept beating fast as he pulled his hands towards against the hips ready for another attack, but would have to delay it as another chain of Ouroboros thrust forth from Terumi.

Alex dashed to the left quicker than a blur to try and throw Terumi off, but the man had already thought two steps ahead and after biting down on his thrown knife with Ouroboros he jerked his arm as far to the right as his joints would allow and swung the chain at Alex faster than he was moving. The boy paused for a second and then dove sideways at the ground, the knife managing to get a clean slice across the side of his forehead.

The boy went numb from the pain for a moment and proceeded to fall onto his left arm. He raised a hand to the side of his head and let out a couple groans as a trickle of blood fell down the side of his face. The knife had managed to almost nick part of his skull, so it was imperative for Alex to use an ember to cauterize the wound before too much blood came out.

When he finished, he kicked himself to upright and looked at Terumi, who at the moment had his nasty tongue wrapped around the bloodied knife. After he whipped the rest of the blood off with a short flick of the wrist, he let out a slow, malicious giggle.

"Come on…Feed me some of those delicious screams!" He then swung his left wrist up beside his face and twirled his second knife around, while Alex glared at him and thought _"The only one screaming will be you, bastard!"_

He stamped his foot on the ground and the area around Terumi's legs began to crack. The man flicked his left wrist up above his head and used Ouoroboros to go flying high above a circle of diagonal stalagmites. After whipping the chain back into his wrist, Terumi tucked his hands into his pockets and stuck his right foot out. His body was enveloped in a snake of darkness and he plunged down like an eagle seeking out prey.

Alex flipped back and threw a fireball at the ground the moment Terumi looked to be landing, causing a body-sized pillar of fire to rise up and catch the man off-guard. His suit was covered in embers that he flapped his hands around to blow off, letting out a few mutterings of "Shit!" in a peeved tone.

The boy landed with a grin, thinking that he was keeping Terumi on the ropes. The momentary lapse into arrogance allowed Terumi to crack a grin and then swing his right hand up, exclaiming "Eternal Coils of the Dragon Serpent!" with the utmost excitement. Alex's face froze in shock before he was bound up by three green rings that emerged below his feet. He was lifted on the ground unable to even use his strength to break free, and Terumi was more than happy to know that.

He flicked his hand out and back in over a second, using Ouroboros to pull Alex right in close to his body. The power of his barrier kicked in, and for a moment Alex's mind felt woozy as his life energy was being drained one bit at a time and given to Terumi. But the man had no intention of ending it there, as he pulled both his knives out and swung them at Alex in a untraceable flurry across his body. The boy, broken from the bindings, hastened to coat his limbs in a similar metal to the blades to he wouldn't be scratching up, but that didn't stop Terumi from getting a few deep cuts on his midsection.

When Terumi was satisfied with his onslaught, he jerked his head and arms back and summoned three glowing eyed serpents from behind his legs, laughing like a madman for a moment before he stabbed his knives down and made the serpents ram into Alex's body to blow him away. Alex tumbled twice on the ground and then forced a landing on his feet, slamming a hand down for extra assistance.

He didn't even wait to stop before kicking his legs up and charging straight at Terumi with arms swung out and teeth grit into a scowl. He got his palms crackling with electricity and swung them out, firing two large bolts out that shook the atmosphere. Terumi stood his ground and threw his knives straight out like darts, both of them striking the center of the bolts and absorbing the brunt of their shocks.

When the electricity stopped, Alex swung his arms forward and plucked the knives into his hands, absorbing the voltage back into his body to envelop himself in a forward shield as he continued his charge towards Terumi. The man swung his right wrist around with dark-green energy exuding from it and took a casual stroll towards Alex with a smile on his face.

Alex swiped both the knives at his foe, who then disappeared from sight for a moment. The boy glanced over his right shoulder and Terumi reappeared already turned around with his left leg swinging right up for a mighty kick. In the moment he had to work with Alex spun around and stabbed both the knives into Terumi's leg right as the toes of his shoe smashed into the bottom of his chin.

A black streak of energy with green edges was painted across the air from Alex's body to about half a mile high. The pressure from the kick knocked up a momentous gale that rippled Alex's skin and hair, but his legs remained stationary on the ground. Terumi grit his teeth and jerked his leg back onto the ground, taking his knives out of the skin while Alex made a hard leap away from his barrier. Taking a moment to rub the bottom of his chin with the back of his head, Alex cracked a somewhat weak smile.

" _Tsk, that barrier is a pain…Least I'm keeping Terumi on the ropes, even without my sword."_

Terumi had a bit of a scowl as he left his knives dripping with blood beside his hips, and he then looked at Alex's smug face while growling out "Resilient little shit, aren't you?"

"Your puny knives and limp chains couldn't threaten a rat let alone an Overlord. You really should get some new material, Terumi."

"Tsk, funny, I was about to tell you THE SAME THING!" He swung his left hand out with a seething fury guiding his wrist, and Ouroboros shot forth towards Alex's head. The boy ducked to the left and punched his right fist out inches below the chain, striking Terumi's chest with a compressed air bullet that skid him back a couple feet.

Terumi then recalled his chain and flicked his other hand up to send another out in a slant. Alex pivoted his head to the right this time, the chain nothing more than a gentle breeze against his hair. The boy then thrust his fist out to punch Terumi with a stronger air bullet. The man was blown a couple more feet back, the heels of his shoes wearing down from how much friction was working against them.

He went back upright and drew his chain back. After a momentary pause, Terumi grit his teeth and swung his right arm out with all he had while his eyes were as wide as they could be. A chain about double the size of the last few shot forth, forcing Alex to hop instead of swivel his head. He then pulled his right fist back and compressed air into a tight, swirling orb.

" _This ends here, Teru-"_

" _ **SPLOOOOOTCCCHHHH!"**_

His thoughts, his actions, all of them ceased the exact second Alex's back was pierced by the head of Ouroboros. He held his arm in the air with a limp sensation pulsing through his body, while his brain began throbbing against the confines of his skull. He looked over his right shoulder, finding it impossible that Ouroboros could have bent back around.

Sure enough, foul play was afoot, as a rift had opened up in the path Ouroboros traveled along and allowed it to come out and strike him from behind. This wasn't Terumi's doing, and even though it was within the Phantom's capabilities Alex could determine that she wasn't responsible either. With a tense clattering of his teeth as the pain shot up his spine, Alex turned his head back towards Terumi and with a smug grin he jerked his hand back to rip a bloodied Ouroboros back to his hand.

The boy stumbled a couple steps forward, the wound in his back bleeding onto his shirt. With a shaky right hand he raised it up to the side of his face and curled his fingertips in to dig into the skin. His head continued to throb with increasing, excruciating pain while Terumi stood on by with an interested smile and a quiet callous remark of "Now the fun can _really_ begin!"

Alex's eyes trembled as his mind was ripped apart, pulling forth from deep, deep within his subconscious flashes of an event he did not recognize. It was a gathering of dozens of people for a party, perhaps a family reunion if the moment he saw a banner in the trees was any indication. It started off happy enough, with people cutting a cake and chatting in merriment.

Then, the first gunshot went off, and a middle-aged man fell to the grassy ground to soon be drowned in a pool of his own blood. That was when the screams began, and more of the people there died one after the one. They fell to the ground as though they were nothing more than pests loitering around a scented lantern waiting to be slaughtered.

Some of the people put up a fight, and one brave soul managed to knock out the gun before it could fire upon him. Yet that same person was then stabbed through the chest by one of the butcher knives before the one responsible could blink. The person was a merciless killer, able to take down a whole group of adults bigger than them with ease, and worst of all they were silent throughout the whole thing.

Even as men, women and children of all ages fell around him, the person was numb to their demises. Any person who tried to flee, the killer just flew over the area and took them down. It was only a matter of seconds before most of the people were killed, leaving one man who took the gun the person had dropped and tried to fire at the killer. The killer turned around and heard the last guy desperate to click the trigger, but it was out of ammunition.

The killer walked over as the person dug their hands into the ground. From their fancy clothes and now bloodstained badge, they appeared to be a person with some position of political authority. The person kept their gun pointed at the killer all the same, saying the first words that weren't just the blood-curling screams of his family.

" _S-So it's you…P-P-Prometheus' pitiful puppet! D-Damn it all…H-How did he find out?!"_

The person's chest was heaving, and they clenched their fingers around the bloodied cloth of their shirt. With bated breath, the person watched in fear as the killer raised the knife up high, and with a hoarse scream he yelled _"I-It doesn't matter how many of us you kill, the Dark family will still-!"_

Plunging the knife into the forehead silenced him forever, though the knife was twisted in just to make sure. The killer stood up and picked up a cellular device from their pocket, opening it up and holding it to their ear.

" _Mission complete, Master Prometheus…"_

Everything up until that point was disturbing, but nothing that would really bother Alex on a personal level with how much death he had seen before. Yet the voice that spoke into the phone, despite being of a much lower pitch, was his own.

"N-No…No this is all a lie!" Alex stammered with a deep, hoarse voice in the real-world, and his other hand gripped the left side of his head as he shook it violently back and forth. Terumi stood close by, getting his kicks off at the sight of his agony.

"Prometheus…Prometheus that bastard…! I'd never swear fealty to him! A-And all those people I killed were…were Joe Dark's family! It's a lie, it's a lie it's a lie IT'S A LIE!" Listening to the writhing of despair before him, Terumi swung his arms up and basked in it all, cackling mad all the while.

"There are no such thing as lies when it comes to the human mind! What you're experiencing is the truth, the truth called DESPAIR!" Alex then broke out of the painful memories with a bitter roar, the skin beneath his eyes wrinkling as he gave Terumi a glare to end all glares.

"BASTARD! None of that was real! You did something to me!" He declared while swinging his right arm out, and with a humored grin from cheek to cheek Terumi stared at him with his bloodshot eyes and exclaimed "Ouroboros drags out even the deepest of one's buried memories! No more need for lies, no more need for secrets, nothing more than the truth shall remain bare!"

Alex's eyes widened, his teeth trembling from how hard he grit them. Yet without a care in the world, Terumi looked him straight on and lowered his eyelids a bit, faking an expression of sympathy with the help of some puckered up lips.

"Awww, is the poor wittle Phoenix of Destruction mad? Does it hurt to know you've ALWAYS been nothing more than a pathetic, murderous wretch? Or maybe it's the fact that, no matter how much you hate to admit it, you'll always be a puppet to some higher power?!"

Alex's heart tensed up against his chest and he let out a firm gasp, and after putting on a more serious look Terumi had something to add on to his remark.

"Look, I get it. It sucks having to answer to the shitty, ungrateful higher-ups. It's why **I** personally cut myself loose from that worthless hunk of armor and became my own man! See, there comes a time in every young boy's life where they just have to… **lash out** and rebel against the higher powers that govern them!" As best as someone like him could, he was trying to be understanding of Alex's pain.

"But see, the problem is that you have all that power, and that sweet, tantalizing RAGE! …And yet you refuse to just say 'Screw it!' and tear those whiny gods asunder! Just think of what you could do! What you could destroy! Why, if the two of us teamed up, not even that bitch Amaterasu would be able to stand in our way! So…" He held his right hand out and with a wide grin asked of the boy "What do you say… _ **partner?**_ "

"GO TO HELL!" Alex lunged right at Terumi with body set ablaze, his hand stretched out and cupped all ready to choke the bastard for all he's done. Slick as a wetted whistle, Terumi slid to the left and watched the boy fly past by him, where he landed on all his hands and feet and spun hard on the spot to face Terumi again. The boy stood up and a thick fog was breathed out from his mouth as he hunched over.

"Well well, don't say I didn't give you a chance!" Terumi declared before swinging his right hand out to send Ouroboros flying right at Alex. The boy charged forward and dodged with a sharp tilt to the right, then once he got an inch before Terumi he thrust his fist out. The man gave a panicked glance and was but a millisecond away from losing his head. The punch summoned a massive shockwave that would have leveled a ten-story building, but with all that force Alex had a moment of vulnerability that Terumi was delighted to expose.

He pulled his knives from the pockets and stabbed them both into Alex's gut. Blood gushed out, but the boy didn't flinch and pulled his fist back to try and plow through the back of Terumi's head. The man ripped the knives out and got some of the boy's blood on his hair and clothes as he ducked down and slipped a couple feet back.

"Heheheh, that person wasn't talking shit after all! One touch from Ouroboros was all it took to piss you the hell off!" When Terumi was out of Alex's punching range, the boy slammed his fist into the ground and sent cracks hurtling towards his foe. The floor opened up and dozens of vines wrapped themselves tight around Terumi and hoisted him fifty feet off the ground.

"EHEHEHEHEHE!" Terumi cackled with a raspy voice while Alex held his hand up and kept it clenched so tight he left his palm bleeding. In rapid succession he zapped Terumi with a giant lightning bolt, left his skin red with boiling water, consumed him in a spiraling inferno, pulled the air from his lungs, then stabbed him through with rocks and sharp ice. Then with one hard pull of his hand, Alex removed the vines from Terumi and watched as his singed body collapsed to the ground.

Panting from exerting so much energy all at once, Alex's expression stayed in a firm glare as he ran over to Terumi and leapt high into the air. Leaving nothing to chance, he was going to bust open his skull and leave the brain splattered across the floor. Eyes shut for a moment then shot open, and Terumi thrust an Ouroboros chain from his chest that shot up and pierced itself through Alex's chest. It didn't strike any vital organs, but it was a painful enough blow to nullify Alex's rage long enough for Terumi to swing the chain down to the right and slam the boy against the ground.

The boy tumbled around, hurting his arms and legs until he was laid out on his back. He laid his hands against the ground and tried to push up, but after three seconds of trying he was forced back down by a hard boot to the chest thanks to Terumi. The man stood over him, his mouth agape with glee as he leaned an arm atop his stamped down kneecap, digging the heel of his shoe into the wound and wiggling it back and forth.

Blood sputtered out from the occasional cough by Alex, and the boy started to raise his right hand up to say "B-Bastard…! I…caahh…! Y-You'll never kill me Terumi, b-but after all you've done to me I SWEAR I will kill YOU!"

"Blah blah blah!" Terumi flapped his fingers out to mock the boy's boasting, then dug the heel in deeper to start cracking Alex's rib cage, remarking to him with ecstasy "Geez, is pointless shit-talking just a hereditary trait between you Overlords?! Why, I recall that idealistic pussy trying SOOOOO hard to claim that 'I'll face justice' or 'Good will TRIUMPH over EEEEEEVIL!'"

With a creaking tilt of the head to the left and a malicious smile, Terumi grumbled out in anger "But look who's still standing while that dumbass has gone pushing up daisies! And soon enough well, **you'll join him** …!"

Terumi then back up a little bit and pulled his foot off of Alex, only to use his right hand to wrench the bleeding boy off the ground and give him a firm, one-eyed glare. As the power of the Azure and the strange aura left Terumi's body, he stared and relished in Alex's pissed off expression for a moments.

"Aaaaah, but that'll have to wait a moment. See, there's a certain something our little friend promised to me, and YOU are going to be the bargaining chip I need to take what's rightfully mine! Eheheheheheh!"

As Terumi cackled, Alex closed his eyes shut tight and tried to drown out the noise with his thoughts, but they were too muddled for him to think straight. The rage inside him had not died, and it mixed itself with the confusion and fear he had towards those cursed memories he knew nothing about. But he was not going to let Terumi have his way, not after he had gotten this second chance to stop the threat of Nu for good. Tensing his eyes up and fighting through both the emotions and bleeding plaguing his body, Alex began trying his damnedest to call back his sword.

" _I-I'll do it…! I HAVE to do it!"_ It was struggle for sure, but one that Alex REFUSED to lose even if it breaks him…

 _Next Time: End of Chaos_


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30: Awakening the Chaos Final: End of the Chaos**

 _Back at the Cauldron…_

Nu began a furious assault with a volley of a couple dozen energy blades, to which Shina got in the path of and spun her sword around to deflect them all across the room, slicing through parts of the floor and wall. Nu then grit her teeth and warped right across to Shina, running her bladed right arm across the ground as she rose it up towards the bottom of Shina's head.

Shina hopped back and Ragna leapt right over her head, dragging himself to the ground with his sword bathed in darkness. He manages to collide with Nu's hand and smash it with all his strength, which cracked the bones in her elbow as the hand was crushed against the ground. The pain from Ragna made Nu giggle, and she wrenched herself back to dodge his broad swing while letting out a playful comment of "Always so rough Ragna…That's what makes this so much FUN!"

Nu swung her left arm out while gliding back and forth along the floor to dodge Shina's thrown aura blades, sending a saw blade rolling across the ground at Ragna's feet. The Grim Reaper lashed his blade down in the ground and swept it up, sending a body-sized Dead Spike at the saw to devour it and cancel both of them out. As the darkness from the attack spread across the sky like gruesome ashes, Nu flew threw them with a lustful blush and her regenerated right arm poised to stab itself through Ragna's chest.

Shina glided along the ground, curving around the side of Ragna's body with the grace of a professional skater, and dragged the tip of her blade across the ground prepared to swing it with all she had. Nu kept on with her attack, expecting Ragna to swing his own blade out to defend himself. When he did so, Nu stabbed it hard enough to push her back a couple feet, after which she pushed herself off the ground and spun her right foot up to block Shina's slash.

A flash of light spanned the room as the attack connected, and the force of it kept Nu spinning around until she was able to put both feet back on the ground and swerve towards Shina with her teeth grit in a curt scowl. She lashed her arms out one after the other in a curved manner, summoning a pair of fanged blades from the ether that swerved themselves towards Shina's neck.

Holding the blade in both hands, Shina kept her cool and tilted it left and right in rapid succession to keep the fangs from reaching her. When the blade was held towards the right, Nu dashed straight in with an upward slice of her right arm. Shina's heart skipped a beat and she turned the broad side of her blade right in the nick of time, getting pushed back diagonally for seven feet from the impact.

Nu threw a couple blades after Shina and then swerved to face Ragna, whose arched slash that crossed the front of his chest managed to only graze the front of the Murakumo's body. Giggling, she threw a few blades at Ragna and kept her distance by gliding away from him. With a scowl he charged forward and swung his sword left and right in a flurry, swatting the swords towards the ground and leaping when he had Nu cornered at the edge of the Cauldron.

He brought his blade down with ferocity rivaling a tiger, only for Nu to glide out onto the open air and get splashed by the edge of the cleaving darkness that cracked part of the floor off into the boiling Cauldron. Nu wiggled her fingers at the bottom of her chin and smiled with a translucent blush. Ragna wasn't done with his attack, as he dragged the darkness back into his sword and spun around in place, sending a razor-sharp crescent that spanned fifteen feet out towards Nu.

The Murakumo widened her eyes and dashed to the left, the edge of the attack managing to cut into her hip but leaving her feeling pleased instead of angered. In her state of temporary bliss, she was caught unawares as Shina sent a straight-forward wave of bright white aura across the ground and sky that washed over Nu's body and sent her crashing into the chrysalis.

Nu recovered from the attack in a moment, but something about being hit by it in the first place annoyed her to no end. Her expression became one of a wrinkled, trembling scowl before she sped across the air and kicked herself off the ground, spinning her legs around at a speed comparable to her saw blades before dropping right at Shina.

Shina had her sword planted with the broad side facing forward after her attack was done, and thus a quick pull was all it took to get the blade into position to block Nu's repeated slicing kicks until the Murakumo slid down the blade and became grounded a few feet away from Shina. Nu spun her legs out in a painful looking spread and slammed her hands against the ground to call forth a giant blade above Shina.

Seeing the blade coming down, she leaned back and laid a hand against the back of the sword to support herself as the attack stabbed into it and refused to give in even as it was grinded down bit by bit. Shina grit her teeth and heard her spine cracking, forcing her to bend at the knees to take some of the pressure off. Nu's smile crept up to the ends of her cheek and she opened a rift prepared to assault Shina with a volley of blades, only for a large, distracting shadow to be cast over her body.

Nu's gaze turned towards the towering Dead Spike opening it's maw to devour her whole, but undeterred the Murakumo pointed the rift at the back of the Dead Spike's mouth and got pierced it with a stream of three dozen blades. Ragna leapt through the breaking Dead Spike and dragged the darkness back into the blade as it was held behind his head. Nu launched a few somewhat larger blades to pierce through Ragna's abdomen and shoulders, but he fought through the pain and came down with the force of a bomb and slammed the blade against the ground to unleash an uncontrolled wave of darkness upon Nu.

Nu crossed her arms as the darkness washed over her, applying a pressure so strong that it kicked her off her feet and swept her down onto the ground. She kicked back up when the darkness left, watching as Ragna was flying right at her like a rampaging bull. With a lick of her lips, Nu flicked a wrist at the ground and murmured "Naughty Ragna~ You should let Nu have fun too!"

She created a field on the ground that slowed Ragna's movements by half, something he only noticed as he was in the middle of swinging his blade. Nu raised her right hand and glided it in one smooth motion down and across Ragna's chin, then placed the blade even with Ragna's neck and after a pause to smirk she was prepared to slice into it.

Shina rushed forward and stamped her feet down in a sideways pose, slicing her blade straight up in her right hand to cut Nu's hand right off. Some of her blood spurted out onto Ragna's clothes for a moment, but she slid back and exclaimed with seething rage "Stop getting in our way you BITCH!"

She swung her arms around and threw multiple energy blades at Shina, who cut them all down with one long, lasting slash of energy across the sky. The energy then fired forth and sliced across the ground at light speed. Nu sped to the left out of the way with a widened eye in her visor, but the energy had managed to slice off the rest of her right arm during the transition. Nu stared at the bleeding socket then swung her other arm up to block Shina's swift approach and ensuing slash.

Nu was pushed back, and Shina went charging in again and spun her sword back in a complete circle to slice against the top of Nu's arm. The blade split in half like a pair of chopsticks snapping, and Nu withdrew her hand in the second she had before the other hand would be lost as well. She slid back and spun her right leg behind herself while her right arm regenerated from nothingness.

The Murakumo's sheer disdain was reflected in Shina's pupils, which were focused on the aura spread across her body.

" _It'll be tough to reach the artifact when it's buffing her regen….Hmmmm, but if I could cut away part of that aura!"_

Nu thrust her right arm out and Shina made one hard leap back to land beside Ragna as the Murakumo summoned three large swords from the sky to try and stab her in quick succession. Shina held the broad side of her sword over her shoulder and against the back, commenting with a swift but gentle tilt towards Ragna "Hey, think ya can stall her for a moment?"

"…Geez, that'd just make my life **complete**." Ragna murmured with quiet scorn while having a tired look in his eyes. Shina's, on the other hand, had an opposite expression as they perked right up as she proclaimed "Great! Good luck!"

She then leaped out of his line of sight and he exclaimed "Wait, at least fill me in-!" but was interrupted by Nu rushing in and stabbing her right arm through his left shoulder. The Murakumo unit plunged it in deep and twisted the wiggling fingers around, pulling herself in and placing her rosy nose an inch away from Ragna's chin while he scowled at her.

"Come on Ragna, you KNOW you want to destroy everything! Why must you be so difficult?" Nu's remark got the Grim Reaper's face stretching out with a wide scowl of disgust, and he made one rough grab onto Nu's elbow and jerked the arm right out of his shoulder even though the pain was excruciating.

Nu pulled back and held her right arm level with her shoulder, opening a series of rifts with the tips of blades poking through them. Ragna's wound filled in at a sluggish pace, but he had enough strength to hold onto the blade in both hands.

"You're the one being difficult! Why won't you die already?!" Ragna roared, and Nu's visor and smile stretched with glee as she was more than ecstatic to declare "Because I love you just THAT much, Ragna!"

Then she sent the blades flying at Ragna, who swung his weapon around to slice each one down and then threw his arm behind his head and charged straight at Nu, exclaiming as he was readying to swing the blade down like a hammer "Time for you to die! Carnage…"

As the blade crossed the front of Nu's leaning back body, she jerked her right knee up in a second and struck the blunt end of Ragna's blade to knock it out of his hands. But as though that would be enough to deter Ragna, as he turned his freed hand into a large claw and ripped it right up towards Nu's body. The Murakumo was giddy as she slid back out of the claw's path, which left three thin bloody scars in the air, but what got her attention right after was a diving cleave of brght white aura.

Nu swung her arms up to protect herself from that, which impacted with the blade and released a blinding flash of light, which allowed Shina to come gliding in from the side with blade tucked hard against her back. The second before Shina swung, the blade turned from steel to an ethereal sky-blue aura, which passed itself right through Nu's rising leg and left a large tear in her aura. Underneath where the aura was cut away, Nu's body returned to it's normal color, but it was filling back in immediately.

Turned away from Nu, Shina was still able to use her inborn senses to tell what was happening and hasted to proclaim "Go Ragna, Go!" The Grim Reaper, as it turns out, needed no such prompting as he stabbed his claw forward at Nu's weakened abdomen. The tips of the claws scratched through the skin as the Murakumo Unit pulled back, laying her arm across the bleeding scars as they healed back up the moment the aura returned.

With a few heavy pants, Nu stared towards Shina and the pants started increasing in fervor. She then warped right over to Shina as she turned around, ambushing her with a slicing uppercut to the left corner of her back that managed to cut through her armor and leave a four inch tall scar in the skin. The nerves where Nu struck were pretty delicate, and as such Shina's heart started racing as a seething pain shot up her back and struck the brain like a gong.

The pain kept her from turning the rest of the way for a critical moment, and with the arm she attacked with crossed before her bitter face she glared at the back of Shina's neck and sliced down. Shina put up a barrier around her neck at the last centimeter before she was struck, and blade sliced down the barrier and struck the back of Shina's left shoulder blade.

Shina gripped her sword tight and turned around, this recent scar bleeding out onto the back of her hair as she swung for Nu's face. Ragna came in from behind for an upward slash of his own, to which Nu retaliated by slamming her bladed arms down atop the edges of their swords, grinding against and keeping them down until she could put focus into surrounding herself with a field of rifts to spew forth a barrage of blades that force the two back so they could raise their weapons for protection.

The constant stream of blades pushed the two away, but it was Ragna who poked his head over the top of his sword and growled in frustration over the matter. With reckless abandon, he swung his sword out and deflected his end of the onslaught away towards the Cauldron, then took his sword out beside his hip and leapt past the aerial blades to dive at Nu with a cleaving slash.

Nu's visor glowed and she spread her arms out, her hair waving around as she was eager to put the Grim Reaper in embrace. Shina, however, made a short hop into the air and swung a wave of aura at Ragna, which mixed in with his darkness and created a contrasting mixture of holy and demonic powers. Using the power of Shina's aura, the veins in Ragna's darkness glowed bright white instead of red, and he slashed down through Nu's left shoulder and right hip with enough force to rip through half of the Murakumo's body.

Nu widened her eyes and stood stiff in her pose, noticing a split between her original and empowered selves that left her succumbing to a moment of vulnerability. Blood spurted from her scar in a geyser, splattering across Ragna's body as the way he held his sword before his face hid his annoyed scowl. Shina landed behind Nu and dragged her sword along the ground ready to swing, but Ragna got ahead of her by putting his sword in the sheath and summoning a claw to wrench Nu off the ground.

"Sorry, but this is going to hurt." He mumbled with a hint of regret as a puddle of darkness formed at his feet. Nu grinned and responded with subdued glee "Hehe…not as much as it'll hurt you, Ragna…"

Two swords thrust down from voids behind Ragna and stabbed through his back and emerged right above his waist. Intense pain held off the crux of his attack, giving Nu a chance to let loose a shockwave from her body that parted the darkness that formed his claw and allowed her to drop to the ground. Shina finished her earlier swing but Nu tilted her head to the left to dodge it, using the momentum from that to spin around and flick her right wrist out to send a couple blades out towards Shina's chest.

Shina blocked them with a wall of aura before her body, but had to be quick with her movements before she could get hit from behind by more blades. She dashed to the left and ran around Nu as she swung her arms out to send more blades after her, keeping Shina's own blade from doing anything more than making defensive swings.

Yet, even with her blade swung around to deflect the blades, she was building up aura within it bit by bit in preparation for retaliation. She shifted her gaze towards Ragna, who was on his knees for the moment waiting for his body to heal. Wrestling between both ways to use her aura, it was only upon noticing Nu's gaze moving towards Ragna that Shina made a hesitant gulp and slashed the built-up aura towards him, where it glided without a sound across the ground and covered his body.

Shina's body was pierced through by a couple blades, but with Nu fighting with herself on who to focus on she managed to miss any vital organs. With a hoarse cough, blood trickled out of Shina's mouth and onto her chin and the top of her chest, while she made a hard leap back to give herself better distance to repel Nu's blades. In the mean time, her split-second decision to fire the aura at Ragna accelerated his healing and allowed him to rush to his feet and lunge right at Nu, surprising the Murakumo with a hard stab through the chest.

And it was nothing as simple as using the tip. Ragna rammed the whole sword through Nu's body until even his hand was being consumed by her moist, fleshy innards. Nu trembled, both from overwhelming pain and the lustful sensations said pain brought upon her, and she laid a hand down atop Ragna's arm and whispered "Give me more…Ragna!"

"With pleasure…!" Ragna exclaimed as he poured darkness into his blade. Nu was in the midst of summoning a blade from each corner of the air around them, prepared to bind them together. Shina charged in and swung her sword up, but Nu turned herself to put Ragna in the path and caused Shina's blade to cut halfway up his back before she realized what she was doing. Shina pulled her blade back and froze up, while the blow to his spine stopped Ragna from unleashing his attack.

Nu giggled and swung her arms out, pointing the blades towards Shina and sending them darting straight at her. Shina held her sword with the broad side up to protect herself, using a wall of aura to widen the defenses even though she was being pushed back in the process. Cracks formed in the aura, and it would only takes a few more blades for the protection to shatter. The moment that happened, Shina broke into a sprint and ran around Nu and Ragna, moving so fast her body was perceived as a series of pure white streaks until she got behind the Murakumo Unit with blade drawn back.

Yet even moving so fast, Nu was able to comprehend and out-predict those movements to spin around and hold Ragna in the path of Shina's rising blade. This time Shina stamped her foot down and jerked her blade straight up, avoiding Ragna's back while biting her lower lip. Nu's face stretched to conform to how agape her mouth as she broke into crazed laughter, summoning one large rift above Ragna that sent forth a continuous stream of blades down at Shina.

She held her ground and held the sword up with a hand laid against the back to block the onslaught, but some of them slipped by and sliced across the sides of her body. She stood her ground, waiting for an opportunity to strike while Nu spent her time looking down into Ragna's grimacing face and remarking "Don't you see how silly it is to resist Ragna?"

She laid her hand against the bottom of his chin and lifted his head up with great resistance, telling him with a pristine smile "You WANT to destroy. The only thing bad about you is that you refuse to give in to your desires! It's not right to lie to yourself Ragna!"

"Shut up…!" Ragna growled out, which got Nu rolling her eyes and saying with a dismayed shake of the head "You just never learn, do you?"

"I-I don't need to learn a goddamn thing! Yeah, fine, I want to destroy! But I will only destroy those who get in my way, I don't care who they are!" Ragna's right arm started twitching and the blade twisted in Nu's body. The darkness from the Azure flared up around his body, and in a grand display of defiance he exclaimed with all he had "And I don't need YOU telling me what to do! I know exactly who I am! I'm the Grim Reaper…RAGNA THE BLOODEDGE!"

He tore his blade free by cleaving off the left side of Nu's hip, and he swung it back behind his head. Nu let out a shocked gasp and slid back, breaking her concentration on the rift bombarding Shina to summon another one to fire at Ragna. Focused on his enemy, Ragna yelled out with a rigid ferocity "Now…You're life is mine!"

He charged forward, even as his body was riddled with holes by the blades sent his way. He sliced through the rift with one downward stroke, then spun around and exclaimed "CARNAGE SCISSORS!" as he smashed Nu's body with a scissor shaped blast of blood and blew her back to the edge of Cauldron. Her visor was broken, leaving her with a trembling, fearful glare as her body had been torn apart all around the front.

Watching her blood and chunks of flesh drip onto the floor, Nu lifted her head up and saw Ragna bend down and start panting, with the darkness around him flickering out. This changed her expression to a raised and pleasured grin, and she swung her right arm up ready to stab him enough to finish off the rest of his energy.

But then two thin, bright yellow swords of aura stabbed themselves up from the ground and pinned her in a diagonal cross that extended past her shoulders. Nu wasn't able to move or attack, forced to do nothing but watch as Shina flipped over Ragna and swung her sword out in the ground. Even with all the scars littered across her body, Shina had the energy to crack a lop-sided smile and chuckle, which did nothing but infuriate Nu.

"L-Let me go…! Ragna's mine…MINE YOU BITCH!"

Shina gripped the sword in both hands and raised it above her head. Pouring all her remaining aura into it until it shone up as a bright pillar that breeched up into the highest recesses of the building, she stared at Nu with a natural calm brimming over her, and even after all that's occurred had a bit of sympathy for the Murakumo Unit. With a shake of the head, Shina raised it high and proud and condensed the aura pouring out into one golden radiant blade, turning it so the edge was pointed at Nu.

"This world has been trapped in this cycle long enough! It's time for them to break free from the darkness of despair, and greet the dawn of a new tomorrow!" Shina cleaved her blade straight down and sliced through the center of Nu's body. She then whipped her body and the blade to the right, slicing right out across the center of the glowing scar her first attack left. With a cross of light covering the Murakumo unit, Shina pulled the blade beside her left shoulder and then slashed forth hundreds of times into Nu's body.

"I'm putting everything I've got into this attack! My body, my mind, my soul, and **OUR** hope! Take this!" Her last attack was one strong, single stab into the direct center of all the slashes, which impaled through the center of Nu's chest and caused the slashes to burst out and become a pair of golden angel wings emblazoned on the air as Shina declared the name of her attack "RADIANT DAWN!"

Nu stammered as her body was split open with dozens of bloody crevices, the primary ones coming from her chest and leaving the artifact piece exposed and laid atop the broad tip of Shina's blade, which was pulled back before the Murakumo Unit knew what was happening. Nu's body returned to it's normal appearance, but with how drenched in blood it was one wouldn't be blamed for thinking that wasn't the case.

Shina planted her sword in the ground and the artifact piece slid into her knees as she bent down, watching as Nu went flying towards the Cauldron. In the midst of catching her breath, Shina watched as the Murakumo Unit had enough energy inside of her for one last act of defiance.

"R-Ragna…I-I won't let you escape me!" She swung her arm out and a giant triangular blade appeared behind Ragna and stabbed him through the center of his chest. He roared in pain as he dragged forward at blinding speeds and bound to Nu through the same sword, while Shina grit her teeth and went _"N-No, and I can't even…!"_

"A-Ah! HOLD ON!" When all hope seemed lost and the cycle would continue even without the artifact contaminating Nu, a familiar, meek voice cried out in a panic and the person in question cared not for her own life as she sprinted to the edge of the Cauldron and dove at the edge of it.

" _N-Noel…?!"_ Shina had not expected to see her again, and was so blighted by the sudden surprise that she didn't have the chance to appreciate her appearance. Noel swung her arm out and exclaimed in desperation "Hurry! Grab my hand!" to Ragna.

The Grim Reaper, with what energy he had, wrenched his arm up and grabbed onto Noel's hand, letting out a puzzled grumble while the sword and in turn Nu were pulled from his body and sent plummeting into the Cauldron alone. Only Noel bore witness to the doll's pitiful, defeated glance before they were consumed by the unholy flames.

Noel started to pull Ragna up, but had dove too far and the weight of the Grim Reaper threatened to drag them both in. As they began to slip, Noel screamed in panic only for a warm grip to latch tightly on her ankles and begin tugging. With whatever energy she had left, Shina pulled as hard as she could to drag both of them up, exclaiming to assure them of her willpower "I-I'm not losing you again Noel!"

It took fifteen long, grueling seconds, but Shina succeeded in pulling them both up. The last jerk threw her off her feet, and she fell to her back with a hard 'Thud!' that rattled her brain. Ragna sat down with his hand laid atop the gaping scar on his chest and the Azure deactivated, while Noel was on her hands and knees panting in a vapid manner due to how much her racing heart had exhausted her.

Ragna took in a few breaths while staring at Noel, murmuring with mild confusion as the girl raised her head and looked at him with a red face and watery eyes "H-Hey…you're that…"

"What do you think you're doing?! How can you do something like that?! Please don't scare me like that! I was really worried about you! Seriously, how can you scare me like that?! I…I…Geez…" Noel poured her heart out in grief, lambasting a befuddled Ragna for what had happened with such an offended tone it was like the two were familiar with each other on a familial level. Yet Ragna's continued, blank stare would suggest that there was no such connection to them, and he wondered what the hell this lunatic was on about.

Noel crawled over to Ragna and raised her fists up, beating on his chest and yelling out even as he grimaced with every fevered pound "STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!" Ragna looked into her tear-dripped face and struggled to answer her fury as she continued to call him the same thing over and over.

"Will you cut it out?!" Was the best he could muster at first, and Noel sucked her lips in and murmured a weak "…S-Stupid…" while sniffling. Ragna closed his eyes and sighed, for once trying to be a little sincere about what was happening as he apologized "I mean…I guess I'm…sorry. My bad…though I don't quite understand…"

Noel then cried herself out to the point of complete exhaustion, and a minute later she was asleep on Ragna's lap. The Grim Reaper watched as Noel snored, coddling her hands at the top of his legs, which made him look around until focused on Shina, who had sat herself upright with a single jerk of her body. Pointing down at Noel, Ragna asked "Hey, you said this girl's name. Do you know her?"

"That's a…long story…" Shina answered with a wide smile as she planted her hands against the ground and enjoyed the sight of Noel at peace. After everything that happened, that sight was reward enough.

"…Oh!" But upon thinking about rewards, Shina turned to the left and plucked the bloodied artifact piece off the ground. Cupping it in her hands before her chest, she could feel her heart racing, hard to believe that it was finally there. She looked towards the sky, and to herself murmured with pride "Hey Alex… **I** did it…"

A light wind then brushed the side of Shina's face, turning hers and Ragna's attention towards the appearance of Rachel in the now silent room. The vampire strolled with parasol in hand and her familiar Gii at her side until she was a toe's length away from Ragna, who wasted no time in asking her "Hey rabbit, who's this?"

Rachel stared down at Noel and closed her eyes, commenting in her straight-forward tone "The new eye."

"'Eye'? The hell's that?" Ragna's second attempt at getting some answers failing due to the cryptic nature of what he heard in them both led to him gritting his teeth and exclaiming in frustration "Arrrgh! I don't know what the hell either of you are talking about! Can you explain it to me in a way that I can understand?!"

"…The one who inherits the true Azure." Rachel clarified on the spot, adding to it a moment later with an aloof glance towards Ragna's right arm "Not that foolish imitation you have now." Ragna raised his brows and raised the hand before his face.

"It won't be long now…The world will change. A great deal will happen that is beyond my understanding." Though they were words that sounded concerned, Rachel laced them with a hint of mysterious intrigue and giggled, admitting to the two "I cannot say I enjoy the prospect, but something about it excites me."

The vampire looked up with a longing glance, squinting just a bit and murmuring "Ah, but before the world changes…Something else will." Ragna looked at her and exclaimed "Hey, quit this cryptic bullshit and fill me in here rabbit!" But it was too late, as she vanished in a wisp of rosy wind to take care of one last little detail…

Hundreds of miles above Kagutsuchi, far beyond the sight of any mortal, Rachel appeared as silent as the wind and stood upon the empty air. The chill of night was of no consequence to her, her pigtails and dress being the only things the winds could budge. She stared towards the twilit moon and her eyes shone bright. Nago uncoiled from his parasol state and nestled beside his master, inquiring "Princess, what are you up to?"

"Nago, Gii…Allow me a moment." Rachel requested politely, her eyes gaining a pure, golden hue as sparks of white and gold energy sparked around her body. Nago and Gii looked shocked and scuttled away, and with a wide smile she hadn't let anyone seen for what seemed like an eternity she Rachel murmured "To think that the three of them would push me to such extremes…Oh Ragna, Shina, Alex…I do so want to know what happens next…"

With a stern but docile stare towards the starry night sky, Rachel enticed a being beyond the grasp of mankind's reach with a lullaby-like remark "Come to me. You want to play, don't you? Nox Nyctores Gigant: Take-Mikazuchi…"

Rachel watched as a big, single light blinked into existence amidst the others, growing bigger and bigger by the second. Without pause, Rachel began to speak an incantation, a summons for her trump card against the final threat to Kagutsuchi's.

"Nullaplex restriction mechanism released, dimensional imaginary number developing…" A flash of light radiated from her body, and spreading out from the tips of her feet was a circular seal as big as the circumference of the city below.

"Connecting to congenital border…Activating Tsukuyomi Unit." A pair of "s" shaped wings spread out from the seal, and Rachel looked up from the center it as the light was five seconds from colliding. Unflinching in her resolve, Rachel watched as the light crashed against an invisible force exuding from the seal and dispersed. Split into two halves, the energies flew out into the distance and crashed into nearby mountains, annihilating the tops of them.

"It's impossible…Not even you can defeat Tsukuyomi's absolute defense. It will be four years before you can awaken again. Until then, go to sleep young one." Rachel was done as soon as she had began, using effort so miniscule it was if she had swatted a stray fly away. But the effects of her efforts were felt back down in the Cauldron, as the destruction of the mountains sent tremors through the city.

"Whoa, what the hell?!" Ragna exclaimed, while Shina just sat on by with a brimming smile on her face, to which the Grim Reaper glared her way and exclaimed "Why are you so goddamn calm?!"

Shina shrugged, and Ragna's face drooped out of dissatisfaction. Then, Noel began to murmur, awoken by the trembling in the city. She poked her head up with a blank stare, and Ragna looked at her and remarked "Oh, so you're finally awake."

"H-Huh…? Where…am I? Who…are you…?" Noel spoke, her outburst but a distant memory. But as she stared up into Ragna's eyes and fully awakened, she noticed where her hands and head were place and her face turned bright red. With watery eyes, Noel pulled back and smacked the front of Ragna's chest with her palms, which knocked her onto her rear with hands planted beside her hips.

"Y-You're…Ragna the Bloodedge! What do you think you're doing here?!" Noel swung her right arm up and summoned Bolverk, trying to make the uncaring Ragna feel fright as she declared "You're under arrest! You have the right to remain silent!"

"Noel, calm down." Shina spoke up, and Noel turned her head and pointed the gun her way. As the two looked at one another, Noel raised her brows and murmured "Huh…? Do I…know you?"

"Yes but…you'll have to give me a moment to catch my breath before I can tell ya how…" Shina leaned back and took in a deep breath, while Ragna sighed and shook his head, mentioning to her with a tired drawl in his voice "Just…don't make this anymore confusing than it already is, ok?"

"Well now…Isn't this just one big HAPPY storybook ending?"

Shina gasped and jerked her head to glance over her shoulder while Ragna and Noel looked the same way with a confused glance. Only one man could start a greeting off with such mockery of their success.

"C-Captain Hazama?!" Noel squealed in surprise, while Shina stumbled to her feet and held her sword limp before her waist at the green-haired man as he strolled forward in front of the lift. 'Hazama' was clapping, giving no attention to Shina's hating glare as he "Everything wrapped up all nice and neat, tied up with a neat little blue bow on top…"

He lifted his head up a bit, staring his yellow eyes straight towards Noel while declaring with a certainty of victory "And you even had the kindness in your heart to hand deliver this gift to me personally!"

Ragna, with teeth bit into a scowl, pushed himself up and murmured "That voice…it can't be!" It would be Shina who confirmed his suspicions, as she declared with pressing intent "Yuuki Terumi, what do you want?!"

"T-Terumi?!" Ragna's face froze up, and he pulled his sword from his sheath while his expression became more animalistic with rage. Terumi raised his brows and with a sour pucker of his lips looked at Shina and commented with little care in his voice "You know, it's not very nice of you to go spoiling the plot."

"BASTARD!" Ragna charged at Terumi, who laid a hand atop his hat and grinned while making a short hop to the right to avoid his slash. Terumi then spun around and raised his left leg up, kicking the center of Ragna's sword while whipping the hat off to reveal his spiky hair. When the Grim Reaper was pushed back, Terumi swung his arms out and balanced the hat atop his pointer finger.

"I'm so HONORED you remember me! What did you remember the most, little Raggy? The hair? The eyes? My BE-AU-TI-FUL laughter?! Or maybe it was all of the above 'cause…When I cut off that right arm of yours and kidnapped that stupid BITCH of a little sister I looked just. Like. THIS!" Terumi's face contorted into a grotesque, inhuman form as he burst into laughter, leaving Ragna staring at him with an unnerved stare.

"You son of a bitch!" Ragna was about to charge in again when Shina swung her sword up in his path and exclaimed "Ragna stop!"

"Get out of my way!" He exclaimed in turn, but Shina did not relent and stared at Terumi. Her heart thumped with uneasy, as she could sense traces of that strange aura around the man's body. Terumi glared at her with a smile, acknowledging her thoughts himself "Ah, the crybaby princess has finally caught on! Ehehehe!"

"Course, not like that's too hard…I bet even the inbred puppy you're protecting could've figured it out!"

"What did you call me?!" Ragna had no control over his emotions, and it was struggle for Shina to keep holding her back. Before things escalated further, she didn't let Terumi's comments get under her skin and exclaimed "Get on with it Terumi!"

"Yes yes, I'm sure you have _plenty_ of things to take care of. Such as finding that worthless, good-for-nothing friend of yours, right?" Terumi said with a smile across his cheeks. Shina stood her ground but winced, while Terumi continued on unopposed "Hey, perhaps I can help you out, free of charge! I mean…it shouldn't be too hard to find him! Why, with that ego that you can see from space and all…"

Terumi wiggled his fingers near the right side of his face while glancing back, before then whipping Ouroboros out from his wrist and sending it flying towards the top of the lift. With one hard jerk forward, Terumi dragged a body down and slammed it flat against the floor on it's back. Shina's attempts to stand strong were thrown out the moment she was able to identify the body.

Sprawled out with cuts and blood spread all around him and eyes as pale as ghosts was Alex, who spit dried chunks of blood out from his mouth and onto his chest, which Terumi stamped his right foot down upon and dug his heel in deep. The man leaned his chest atop his knee and stared into Shina's delightfully horrified expression, murmuring without a hint of remorse "Well would you look at that… _I found him!_ "

 _Next Time: The Devil's Bargain_


	31. Final Chapter

**Final Chapter: Fated Choice**

Shina stared down at Alex's bloodied body and was swept up in a sea of shock. She didn't want to believe, for even a SECOND, that Terumi could have defeated Alex. She looked up at the man and poised her sword at his open head, thinking that Terumi was playing games with her, and declared "Do you think we're going to fall for your illusions, Terumi?!"

"Illusions?" Terumi's eyes widened to the size of nickels and he spat a bit on his own words before smacking the top of bent knee and shaking his head down, murmuring with sheer disbelief towards himself "Holy shit this bitch's serious…Ehehehe, you idiots make my job so EASY sometimes!"

Shina let out a small, frightened gulp and lowered her blade a couple inches down while Terumi flung his head up and exclaimed "This is as real as shit can get real, stupid girl! There's no tricks up my sleeve here!" He flung his hands out and waved them up and down, mockingly showing off how empty they were while sticking his tongue out due to how madly he was giggling.

With a stretched out glare that left her focusing on Terumi's face without blinking, Shina's heart tightened up like a screw, and a scowl hung low on her face. Her lips quivered, and her front teeth scraped back along the bottom of her lips.

" _How…? How did this happen Alex?"_ She glanced down at him in hopes of answers, but the boy's throat was too busy coughing up his own blood. Then, a bolt of lightning came down towards Terumi's other leg and forced him to jerk it behind himself before it was singed whole. The man flinched and twisted his head to the right to see Rachel holding her parasol out before her body and standing in the way of Noel's line of sight as best she could. The vampire stared at Terumi, her usual calm broken just a bit.

"Terumi, just what do you think you're doing?" She inquired with a pressing tone, while behind her a flustered Noel tried to step around to take a look at her 'Captain'.

"C-C-Captain Hazama? W-What are you…?" Rachel floated a bit off the ground and blocked her path, remarking in a fervent tone "Miss Vermillion, I implore you to avoid eye contact with this man!"

"Awwww, you're no fun at all, shitty vampire!" Terumi stated with deep, scathing disdain, only for his lips to curl up into a shit-eating grin as he merrily declared "Oh well, not like _you_ will make a lick of difference!"

"Ghh…!" A frustrated grumble was the last thing anyone expected from the vampire, though it was more worrying for Shina than it was Ragna, who glanced back and exclaimed "Hey rabbit, mind explaining what the HELL is going on for once?!"

"There is little time for that Ragna. For now, you and that girl must not be rash. Whatever you do, do not give in to Terumi's words." The advice was necessary for the two, but Ragna believed otherwise and grit his teeth as he turned back at Terumi and grumbled out the word "Bastard…!"

Terumi raised his brows and cackled "What's wrong little puppy? Are you choking on your master's leash?!" Ragna swung his sword back and was ready to charge around Shina's own while exclaiming "SHUT THE HELL UP!"

However, Rachel summoned another lightning bolt between Ragna and Shina, forcing the two back while their hearts skipped around for a few seconds. The two glanced back, being met with Rachel's firm, wide-eyed glare. She didn't have to say anything beyond that, for as much as he wanted to rip that man to shreds, Ragna was forced to hold back. Shina, on the other hand, wasn't placated by Rachel's warning bolt. She wanted to charge in and attack Terumi to save Alex.

" _Just one attack…One attack should be enough, r-right?"_ She gripped her hands around the handle and the metal made a sound similar to rattling keys. Her arms shook with uncertainty, and for every second she stared into Terumi's eyes he was staring back and had to have been predicting her actions down to the letter.

He EXPECTS an attack, there was no reason for him to be so cocksure otherwise. And if Shina moved even a step forward to attack, Terumi would move even faster to crush Alex's heart or lungs under his heel. Terumi thus continued to grin at Shina unopposed, applying a pressure so great that the girl didn't even want to say a word to him for fear that he act upon Alex in some cruel fashion.

" _What…do I do?!"_ She closed her eyes tight and grimaced, unable to think of a single way to save her friend's life. Thus, with those at the frontlines forced into a state of silence, Rachel took the reins of the conversation with as quiet a demeanor as she could muster.

"You must truly have a death wish, Terumi. Even for you, this course of action is utterly despicable."

"Oh shitty vampire, you _flatter_ me, really, you do! But lets be frank here, do you ACTUALLY give a damn what happens to this stubborn brat?" Terumi poised a difficult question for Rachel to answer, and during the time she takes to think upon that with a murmur the man raised his right hand up and scanned the room while inquiring "Lets get a raise of hands here! Who, oh WHO, actually gives a damn about this chicken shit?!"

Shina was about to raise her hand when Terumi froze her in place with a piercing glare and a whisper with a hint of sadism "Aurians need not apply…!" Shina instead glanced back and wasn't surprised that neither Ragna nor Noel did anything, though to Ragna's credit he closed his eyes and did seem to be struggling to remember the boy in some form.

In the middle of turning her head back around, Shina paused on the sight of Rachel holding her right hand up, and let out a slight gasp of shock. Terumi cracked an annoyed scowl and murmured "You really ARE too damn sentimental, shitty vampire."

"It is not sentimentality, Terumi. But it'd be difficult to expect you to understand what this feeling is…" Rachel opened her eyes and told him off with a firm but confident stance, after which she laid a hand on the side of her head and explained herself "It is faith, a faith that I had long thought futile to have. It is a faith that people can change, that they can fight against their otherwise static dispositions."

Her stare diverted downward just a millimeter, and with a smile she admitted "I wish for the boy to prove that someday, even if I do not bear witness to it." Terumi's lips curled into a bitter scowl for a moment, while Shina blinked three times and then swung her head back to look at Alex.

" _I don't get it…What is she talking about?"_

"God DAMN vampire, all those sweets you've been chowing down on must've gone and poisoned your brain! Faith this, faith that, like I GIVE a damn what you think!" Terumi shook his head a little while laying some fingers across his forehead. He then stared out at everyone and rested an arm atop his leg, commenting to everyone with little care in his voice "Ok ok, enough playing around. I'm a busy, BUSY man and quite frankly my neck's getting sore looking down at all you peasants!"

"You will not find me disagreeing, Terumi. I myself have been holding back an incredible urge to express revulsion at the sight of your sickening face." Rachel retorted with a smile caressing her cheeks. Terumi grimaced at her comments and muttered the word "Bitch…" with sheer disdain.

"Damn it rabbit, just let me tear this bastard's head off already!" Ragna exclaimed with sheer impatience, his eyes and nostrils flaring open as his grip tightened around the blade. Rachel was forced to summon another lightning bolt to quell him, but instead got him to turn around and exclaim "Oh come on, is this one boy really that freakin' important?!"

"Not really, no." Terumi interjected in a nonchalant tone, while Rachel closed her eyes and with a great dedication to ignoring the man's loose remarks was courteous in explaining to Ragna "The boy is an Elemental Overlord, a being of great importance to the balance of the universe as a whole."

"…You're just pulling my leg now rabbit." Ragna responded with a blank stare. Rachel then turned to Terumi and continued without missing a beat "Which makes your actions all the more perplexing, Terumi. Do you truly wish to call upon 'their' wrath?"

"Ehehehe! Stupid vampire! Like those 'higher-ups' even have an inkling of a clue what's going on here! Cause I LOVE to burst your bubble, but our little friend in the shadows gave me their full reassurance that those three idiots know NOTHING at all!"

Shina and Rachel both gasped for differing reasons, with Shina now able to put two and two together in order to exclaim to Terumi "You're working for that monster that's been following us across the other worlds, haven't you?!"

Terumi's ensuing laughter was short but louder than it had ever been, with him jerking his head down and leaving his mouth agape to the point that his chin had a sharp end. He then clapped his hands in a resounding rhythm and exclaimed "Give this girl a frickin' silver medal! Yep, that's right! And it was a pretty easy alliance to make to boot! See, we both share a seething hatred towards the Elemental Overlord and his ilk, and want nothing more than to make them suffer until they die!"

"So, this is all about revenge. How expectedly petty of you, child." Rachel remarked, and Terumi gave her a deep, furious scowl while pressing his foot deeper into Alex's chest to make him cough up a violent geyser of blood that splashed down across his face and neck.

"Want to say that _again_ , shitty vampire?!"

"Stop, don't!" Shina exclaimed without a hint of control in her voice and actions as she swung her left hand up, her expression distraught with fear. Terumi calmed down just a hint and let up the pressure a little, swinging his hands aside while saying "Awww, how pwecious, you actually care for the wittle shit."

Shina's heart skipped a beat and she pulled the hand back into her chest, murmuring to the man "H-He's my friend, of course I do!" Terumi's smile went up on both sides until it was a perfect crescent, and he closed his eyes while shaking his head back and forth.

"Well if you're sooooo worried about him, then perhaps I'd be willing to let him go in exchange for…a couple **minor** favors."

"Miss Aurora, do not-!"

"…W-What do you want, T-T-Terumi?" Shina's willingness to listen was the least desired but most expected result in Rachel's mind. The vampire widened her eyes and swung her parasol forward prepared to call forth lightning, but bit her fangs down upon her lower lip when realizing that it would only sway the girl closed into Terumi's vile thrall.

Terumi opened his eyes a bit and flicked a pointer finger forward, making his first request short and sweet "Let me take a peek at Noel Vermillion. Come on, just for a couple seconds. Not every day you get to meet the Eye of the Azure in person after all!" He punctuated his words with a intrigued, almost normal looking smile.

With her body rattled with an immense guilt, Shina murmured a soft "D-Darn it…" and closed her eyes to hide the tears that wanted to form. Keeping her hands on the sword's handle, Shina looked back and begged Rachel "Please…L-Let him take a look at Noel."

The vampire widened her eyes and was surprised to find herself being pressured like this. Cursing the shadowy figure that was assisting Terumi in her head, Rachel lowered her parasol and dropped to the ground, putting Noel's eyesight perfectly in line with Terumi's. The man's eyes flared open to the point of looking bloodshot, and he exclaimed with sheer glee "That's right! Gaze upon me Noel Vermillion! Take it in, take it ALL in!"

Noel froze up and her eyes turned bright blue for just a second, and at that moment she was looking past the 'shell' of her boss and bearing witness to the true form of Terumi. Clutching her hands crossed before her chest, Noel murmured out "Dark…Susano'o…" Something about this action made Noel's head recoil back as though shot with a bullet, and she then gripped the sides of it while whimpering in pain.

"W-What's going on?! Who…who are you?!"

Terumi leaned back with a grin and took in a deep breath through his nostrils, letting it all out with an enjoyed sigh before remarking "Ahh, nothing like pure despair in the morning! Really makes you _appreciate_ life, doesn't it?! Ehehehe!"

Shina and Rachel looked at each, the vampire soon glancing aside. The two were disappointed in themselves for letting this happen, and were equally afraid of what Terumi's second request would be. Shina glanced back at him and her heart pounded once every two seconds. She looked down at Alex again, and noticed that his right hand was twitching out to the side. His eyes had a little more life to them, and his tongue wiggled as though he wanted to speak.

" _A-Alex…?"_ Before she could attempt to communicate with him, Terumi wagged his right hand along the top of his kneecap and murmured as though in a rush to get going "Well, it's been fun, but now it's time to get what I was promised. So come on, cough up that artifact piece you plundered off the doll's corpse and I'll be on my merry way!"

"…What?" Shina did a double-take, uncertain she heard that right. Terumi raised his brows and waved his hand around some more, pressuring her with a scalding remark "What are you deaf? You know EXACTLY what I'm talking about, stupid girl!"

Shina hummed deep within herself and glanced back at the stone tucked behind her right heel. She looked at Terumi, her heart beating harder as a slow-forming sweat appeared on her forehead.

"B-But…I can't…" She swallowed the pain inside just to say that as quiet as a mouse, and Terumi leaned the left side of his head out with a hand cupped around his ear to say "Huh? I couldn't quite hear that. Are you telling me that a stupid little rock is more important to you than this brat?!"

" _No! I-I mean…"_ She closed her eyes and whimpered. The stone was far and beyond more important than Alex was, but it sounded so callous to think of things that way.

" _But, Alex_ _ **isn't**_ _worth more than my people…"_ She was pained to admit that, and thus she was swift to try and rationalize another answer out of herself. The pressure Terumi was putting on her made thinking difficult.

Her entire life up until this point had only been possible because of her family. They kept her going even through troubling times, and without that love for them she never would have been brave enough to go on this journey in the first place. She vowed to protect them, no matter the cost…

" _But…!"_

If it wasn't for Alex, then this journey of hers would have ended before it ever began. He had no obligation to help her, even with the words in her mother's letter saying she had faith in his capabilities. Alex CHOSE to come along, to take her from planet to planet in search of these artifact pieces. She sees him as a rough person, but has gotten to experience his kinder self many times. He's kept her fed, paid attention during most of her conversations, and even helped her get better at fighting.

"… _There's been nothing for him to gain throughout this entire journey, and yet he's put up with so much selfishness on my part…He's strong, a little bit kind, and when the chips are down I know I can rely on him to help. He's…a really, really good friend, and if the tables were turned I KNOW he wouldn't abandon me!"_

Shina flared her eyes open and glared at Terumi. She knew that Alex was not worth more than her people. From her perspective, their value was equal.

" _B-But…"_ Shina's features sagged into a doubtful scowl, realizing that this line of thinking only made things tougher for her. As she thought on this, a rough cough drew her attention downward, where Alex spat blood from his mouth and his head trembled as he pulled it back to look her in the eyes.

"D-Don't…do…do it Shina!" His voice was barely intelligible, as it was hoarse and as rough as gravel. He hacked up a few rocky chunks of blood that sounded as though it scraped the insides of his mouth, all just to tell her "F-Forget…about me! I-I can-"

Terumi slammed his right foot down atop the boy's mouth and forced the blood back in, then laid it out so Alex couldn't even breath. With wide, bitter grin and fevered eyes Terumi declared "Sorry, no commentary allowed from the _peanut gallery_!"

Shina's chest tightened and she pointed her sword up, exclaiming to him "Cut it out!" Terumi just laughed it off and pressed his crossed arms atop the knee, while Alex's face turned a darker shade of red by the second.

"I can't imagine he has much longer you know. Thirty seconds, maybe a minute tops? Even HE can't stubborn his way out of this **bloody** mess! Ehehehe!" Terumi reeled his head back from how hard he was laughing.

"Terumi! What do you even hope to gain by collecting that stone?!" Rachel demanded to know with an impatient fury, but the man just looked at her and said with one eye wide and bloodshot "Oh wouldn't you like to know?! May as well shut the hell up now vampire, cause I ain't spoiling the coming shitstorm I plan to unleash upon this world!"

Shina trembled some more as she looked around the room. There was no one else in sight to come in for a sudden rescue, Ragna was kept back by Rachel's commands even though he was ripe with rage, Noel had fallen thanks to perceiving Terumi's true self, and Rachel was wise enough to not try an attack now. It all came down to Shina's decision whether Alex would live or not.

" _But…I-I just can't…I-I can't leave this stone in Terumi's hands! If that monster is working with him, then it'll just be Nu all over again!"_ She closed her eyes, peering through just a bit to watch as Alex's condition worsened. His choking was muffled, and blood was pressed through his nostrils.

"I wonder how this shit's neck will look once it's caulked up in his own blood?! I may just have to pull it out and see!" Terumi decreed, his words serving a dual purpose of amusement and pressuring.

"Don't do it Shina! You MUST hold out!" Rachel yelled with all she had.

"She can hold out all she wants, but I can't say HE will do the same! Ehehehe!"

"Miss Aurora, you have to trust me! Everything will work out if you wait just a little longer!"

"SHUT UP SHITTY VAMPIRE! Your optimism's really starting to grate on my nerves!"

"NO!" Shina broke their arguing with an echoing yell. With tears trickling down the sides of her face and all gazes fixated her way, Shina opened her hands and the sword plummeted to the ground. She avoided looking at anyone as she dropped down and picked the artifact piece off the ground. Rachel stared with utter disbelief and swung her parasol down, only for Terumi to flick his right hand forward and summon Ouroboros to bite down on the top of it.

"Ah ah ah…Don't bother. It's already over! You've LOST, shitty vampire!" Terumi said with a wiggle of his pointer finger beside his face. Shina held the artifact piece in her palms and extended it towards the man, who pulled his foot back off Alex's mouth and let the flood of blood gush out of it. Terumi rubbed his hands together and licked his lips, and with one hand plucking the stone from her grip and holding it before his face.

"Beautiful…Who could've thought a single stone could look so BEAUTIFUL?" Terumi looked at Shina, who tightened her fists beside her hips and told him "L-Let him go now!"

"What? Now, when did I EVER agree to do that?" Terumi said, slick and calm as could be, and Shina swung her head up and exclaimed with righteous fury "You LIAR!"

With a callous shrug Terumi grinned and said "But hey, if you reaaaaaally want me to let him go, then I'm more than happy to oblige…" Terumi stared deep into Alex's eyes and declared with all he had "And by 'letting him go', I mean I'll sever his life from this world FOREVER!"

Before he raised his foot from the ground, the Phantom appeared from the nothingness beside him, leaving him to glare at them from the side of his face and mutter "What do you want? I didn't call for you!"

Rachel was left gasping in shock at the cloaked mage's presence, murmuring to herself "Of all atrocities you could have committed Terumi, even this is beyond what I could have expected from you…"

The Phantom's cloaked started to rip down the center, the whole of the Cauldron trembling as Terumi raised his brows and then looked down at Alex's face. Even with a face drenched in red, a weak smirk could be made out from it.

"Shit, shit SHIT!" Terumi raised his foot up and exclaimed "Why won't you DIE ALREADY?!" As he brought his foot down, Alex put all his remaining strength into one final tug, and with an atmosphere shaking shatter Phantom's cloak burst apart and Alex's sword flung into his hand.

"TERUUUUMIIII!" Alex's voice came out feral and gargled sounding as he swung his sword out with all his might. Terumi pulled his leg back and the tendons below the knee were sliced through. Terumi leapt off the boy and staggered back, while Alex's eyes began to close and the sword faded out of his hand.

"God damn worthless BITCH, you almost blew this whole goddamn thing! Shit, whatever! Just hurry up and get me out of here!" Terumi was attacked by Ragna, but the Phantom wrapped it's cloak around him and warped him away just in the nick of time. Alex's eyes shut on the sight of a crying Shina bending down over his face and yelling his name in desperation.

"Alex, no! Please, hold on…Alex…! _Al…ex…!_ "

…

…

…

 _Later…_

There was a sleeping darkness and a weightlessness surrounding Alex's body. He was adrift in a sleep that only now he seemed to be waking from. It was a slumber so deep, that he didn't even think or feel a thing occur around him. The first thing he experienced upon awakening was his eyes creaking open, and his head feeling as empty as the air he breathed. He paused upon his first breath and pulled his hand up from a bed cover his body laid under, laying it atop the front of his neck and making a single, hard swallow of saliva flow down it.

There was no blood to be found in his entire body save for what flowed through his veins. He had been cleaned up, not a single droplet remaining, and the scars upon his body and clothes had been patched up just as new. Alex rubbed the side of his head as thoughts reformed within, and with a weak grit of his teeth he looked around.

He was on a fancy king-sized bed with red flannel sheets laced with black bats and pillows made of pure, fluffy cotton. The room's atmosphere was painted with the pale light of the crimson moon outside it's arched windows.

" _Rachel's…castle?"_ Alex leaned forward and wiggled his legs, the sound of the sheets shuffling disrupting a person who was sitting on the side of the bed.

"… _I-I have to remember…"_ His right eye winced shut as a pain shot up his spine. His muscles were stiff and in the midst of waking up, and he wasn't able to do anything more than sit upright for now. Closing his eyes a bit, his position was soon disrupted by a pair of hands slamming down on the part of the bed beside his left leg.

He jerked his head to the left and was greeted by Shina, who had twisted her body onto it's side to stare at him with a disbelieving stare and a steady shake of the head. Once she gave herself a couple light slaps on the head, she stared at him some more and a smile went across her face that pushed the bottom of her eyes into a firm, tearful squint.

"Oh thank goodness, you're awake!" She swung her arms out for a hug but the boy raised and smacked his palm into her forehead. She pulled back as he dropped his limb, shaking it around and letting out a pained grunt.

Shina rubbed her forehead with small puckered lips and fully shut eyes, but when she was done she didn't look the least bit angry at Alex. She kept smiling and said "I-I was worried you weren't ever gonna wake up!"

"…Ghhh, was I…out for a while?" Alex was starting to piece things back together, and Shina glanced away from him while remarking with some hesitation "Y-Yeah…You were in a coma, and-"

"Terumi…!" Alex growled through gritted teeth, his face contorting into a ferocious looking scowl complete with brows arched downward. His trembling got more violent, and he tightened the grip of his fingers around the side of his forehead. Shina pulled a bit away and watched as Alex recounted the events he remembered with tight-lipped rage.

"He took my sword, struck me with Ouroboros…! T-Then the last thing I remember was him using my beaten body as a goddamn _bargaining chip_ for the ar-" Alex froze up and his head started to make a slow turn towards Shina, who was already hanging her head and pushing herself off the bed. Alex grabbed onto her right wrist and held her in place, giving her a burning, pale white glare. She closed her eyes and chuckled.

"A-Alex, ya should wake up a little more bef-"

"And YOU gave into his demands and handed it over despite me telling you not to!" Alex started in a whisper before going into full-blown disbelief. Pushing his body past it's weakness even though his nerves throbbed in agony, he pulled Shina in and grabbed the front of her shirt's neck, putting the two's faces an inch apart and giving her a clear look at every irritated crinkle on his skin.

"What the HELL were you thinking?! Have I not hammered it into your head enough by now that you only have one chance at a family?! If you're so easily willing to blow that chance to save my sorry ass, then you've been wasting BOTH of our-" Shina swung her hand up and struck the side of Alex's face like she was wielding a blunt club. His head was swung to the right as far as it would go, and in turn made him let go of her and pull back to the edge of the bed.

He stayed frozen in place, rubbing the side of his face even though the pain was focused all in the heart. Shina laid a hand atop her chest and panted for a couple seconds, exclaiming out of sheer exasperation "I couldn't just leave you behind! I don't just have one chance at having a family Alex, I only get one chance to have a friend like you as well!"

"And THAT's your reason for handing that object over to the literal Satan of this world?!" Alex said while turning his head to give her a sideways glance. Shina turned at him and swung her arm out to reply "Yes! At least there's still a chance we can get the artifact BACK from Terumi! If you die, no one can bring YOU back!"

Alex's heart tightened, and he jerked his head away and bit down on his lower lip. Closing his eyes, he let out a prolonged growl of frustration over Shina telling him "I-I thought you'd be happy that-!"

"Ok, enough! God, I don't need this right now…" Alex wiggled his arm out and fell flat back down onto the bed, laying both arms out at his sides and staring up towards the autumn decorated ceiling. Closing his eyes, he gave a soft punch to the top sheet.

" _It's not her fault…It's not mine either…All this is thanks to Terumi and that other bastard helping him…"_

Alex tried to look at Shina, but she turned her head away with a low frown while nestling her hands before her waist. Alex rolled his head to the right and focused on the door, where he noticed Rachel standing in wait all by her lonesome.

"I should have known you were responsible for that ruckus, Mr. Whiter. It seems your return to the mortal plain was not a pleasant one…" Rachel strolled across the room, her arms at her hips, then stood at the side of the bed while Alex turned his head away with a tiny scowl on his face.

The vampire closed her eyes and then used a light gale to glide onto the edge of the bed, tucking her lithe legs under the folds of her dress while brushing the side of her hair. Then, with a mischievous smile, she remarked "You should be honored, Mr. Whiter…You sit in the bed where my father Clavis took his final breath." Alex's eyes widened and he shunted back into an upright pose, glaring at the vampire and brandishing a finger at her.

"There used to be a corpse here?!"

"It would have been both humorous yet tragic if the same were to have occurred again. Perhaps now you should shower me with your everlasting appreciation for saving your life." Rachel played the matter with her usual nonchalance, and Alex just raised a brow and began to murmur "What are you talking? I wasn't-" before remembering that Shina hadn't been made privy to that truth.

Sealing his lips with a dry smack, Alex rubbed the back of his head and with a long sigh gave a forced "Thank you" to Rachel. The vampire smiled and responded in turn "You should truly thank Valkenhayn, for he is the one who partook in the vulgar task of cleaning you of all that blood and laid you to rest on this bed."

Alex moved his hand to the side of his still throbbing forehead and grumbled "H-How long was I even OUT for?"

"Eight days." Rachel said with no hesitation. Alex's eyes widened and he grumbled slowly "E-Eight? That's ridiculous."

" _Not to mention that means…"_ Alex was about to finish his thoughts when Rachel cracked a smile and mentioned "Miss Aurora has been quite busy since you fell into a coma. But far be it for me to speak of someone else's tales." Alex rolled his head over to Shina, who was peeking over her shoulder with the hair brushed up in one hand and a sad look in her eyes.

"Haaaa…Look, Shina, I-I get it…Terumi gave you no other choice…" He averted his gaze from her body and with a flush of red in his cheeks his own body grew warmer. Closing his eyes, he swallowed his pride and admitted "I-I'm sorry for losing my temper."

"It…it was the hardest decision I ever made, ya know?" Shina muttered with a somewhat pleasanter voice, and she dropped her hand back to her waist and let the hair droop like a curtain to obscure the tears trickling down her face. Once she rubbed them away, she repositioned her body to be kneeling much like Rachel was, then looked down at Alex with a hard sniffle smiled and said "But…I'd be a jerk if I didn't accept your apology, so thank you Alex…"

Then, after a few seconds of silence, Shina put on a more firm expression and dug her fingers into her pants as she told her story to Alex "After Terumi fled, I helped rush you back to here, but Ragna and Noel were dragged along with us. I-I ended up having to explain to them what was going on with Rachel's help, including the part about why they were remembering stuff…I-I don't think I gave Ragna a good opinion on you."

"…Whatever." Alex brushed it off with a somewhat disheartened sigh, and with a casual wave of the hand allowed Shina to continue.

"Well, since Terumi ran off, we ended up having to wait for him to come back. Ragna and Noel went off to take care of their own problems, and I waited around here until he showed up. B-But no matter what I tried, he was able to slip out of my way every time cause he could see me coming with the help of the continuum shifts. So I ended up going back to the NOL HQ after a while to help Ragna, Jin and Hakumen defeat Noel after she had been transformed back into a Murakumo Unit thanks to Terumi."

Crumpling her hands down into fists, Shina grit her teeth and said "But Noel wasn't given the artifact piece. And there was not hide or hair of it on Terumi's person. And when Relius, the Phantom, and even the Imperator showed up none of them had it either. Now all of them have run off to god knows where and I don't have any idea what to do!"

With a heartfelt plea, Shina bowed her head to hide her shame and said "Alex, w-what are we supposed to do now?!"

Alex stared at her for a few seconds and then over to Rachel, who gave him a half-open glare and remarked "Well? The stage is yours, Mr. Whiter…What shall be the story you write next?" Alex pulled himself into a upright sit and tugged at the front of the sheets, remarking in a 'this should be obvious' kind of tone "Of course Terumi wouldn't have the stone on him. He was so desperate for that thing he used my body was a bargaining chip instead of killing me outright."

The boy laid a hand on the front of his head and shook it back and forth, swinging the other one up to punch the head of the bed. Rachel didn't appreciate it, but he had to let out his frustrations out somehow.

"None of this would have happened if I had just…!" Alex remembered the first time he heard Terumi cackle arrogantly to his face, and the other times he laughed blended together into a cacophony of echoes. Then, all at once, they were silenced, leaving the boy's mind clear and focused on one objective.

"No. Enough of this bullshit." Alex started to drag the hand down his face while leaning forward.

"I…am the Elemental Overlord! It is supposed to be my duty to slay unrepentant bastards like Terumi to uphold justice, and I've been slacking on the job long enough!" As Alex looked out the window towards the crimson moon, Shina tilted her head and asked "S-So…you're saying we need to kill Terumi to get the stone back?"

Alex shook his head and said "No, that's not enough. I'm not going to stop at just Terumi. Relius, the Phantom, Izanami, and even that bastard that's been causing us trouble! They made their first and final mistake by making **me** their enemy."

He pulled his hand off the rest of the way, his eyes burning bright red, but not because of the reflection of moon. With a firm, unflinching stare forward he declared with unbridled confidence "As Hakumen has made his creed, I TOO will not stop until I have reaped all the sins in this world and cleansed them in MY fires of destruction. And when all's said and done, we WILL have that artifact piece! That, I swear to you with all my heart, Shina."

…

…

" _My oh my…It seems your plan this time worked a little too well, my dear friend."_

" _Words are just words, in the end. I feel no less threatened by his bluster than I am by the bites of ants."_

" _I suppose that is quite true. But as though much could threaten you."_

" _Hmph, thinking on such a venomous wavelength will only lead our plan down a path to ruination."_

" _Well now, neither of us wish for that upon the other now do they?"_

" _Not at all. Now then, all we can do is watch as the boy scrambles to come up with a futile plan, for when I am done with him, he shall trip upon his own hypocrisy and be forced to suffer the consequences."_

"… _But must it be done this way?"_

" _Do not let sentimentality cloud you with hesitation, my friend. Only she will suffice for this given role."_

"… _I only worry about the manner upon which this gruesome fate shall be doled out. That irritable phantom is a bit too eager to be playing this role out."_

" _Eagerness is what makes a role stand out from the rest. I, for one, am looking forward to see what Yuuki Terumi can manage without any further assistance from yours truly."_

" _Why, you say that as though you will not have anymore say in the affairs of this world."_

" _Not in direct correlation to the phantom's activities, rest assured. Why, all I want to do is take a dog out for a nice, brisk walk."_

" _Hahaha…Very well. I suppose I shall see some entertainment in that before the real show begins."_

" _Then let us prepare for the future. A future buried in the flames of destruction's rage and despair."_

 **2200/01/09**

 **ACT 1: The Calamity Trigger END**

 **Next Time…ACT 2: The Collapsing Order**

 **CLASH OF THE ELEMENTS PART 4 EX STORY 4**

 **THE END!**

* * *

 **Author's Notes:  
**

Well, that's one story out of the way. Yes, you heard right. There will be TWO BlazBlue stories in this whole part. The next one will be probably about half the length of this one, and unlike everything so far it'll be a completely original story that's divergent from the post-Continuum Shift timeline in the series. Look forward to it in about two weeks, cause I need to wrap up the other story I'm writing now.


End file.
